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INTERNATIONAL

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2014

US details 14 killings in Blackwater trial

WASHINGTON: A US government prosecutor on Tuesday chronicled for a jury the alleged conduct of four Blackwater security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqis and wounding 18 others in downtown Baghdad nearly seven years ago.

In opening statements at the trial of the four guards, Assistant US Attorney T. Patrick Martin said some of the victims were "simply trying to get out" of the way of gunfire from Blackwater guards.

"Fourteen died, 18 injured. For what?" he said. One component of the prosecutors' case is that the Blackwater guards harbored deep hostility toward Iraqis and boasted of indiscriminate firing of their weapons.

Immediately after the shootings at Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, as soon as the guards got back to their

base, they participated in a lie that there were insurgents in the area, said Martin

"That lie that they had begun that day would unravel within moments" because two veteran Army officers showed up on the scene to see what was going on, he said.

The State Department hired Blackwater and Martin said it took four days for the department to arrive on the scene to look into the shootings. He said the investigation was pathetic, incomplete, haphazard and that "most of all it seemed bent on clearing the contractors."

The State Department did not immediately respond to an email request for comment late Tuesday.

One of the guards, Nicholas Slatten,

is accused of first-degree murder. The other three - Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard - are on trial for voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and gun charges.

In the aftermath of the shootings, Liberty was slapping people on the back, just as at a football game, Martin said. The guards pleaded innocent to all charges. On Tuesday, Martin displayed graphic photos and video of the scene in the Iraqi capital, including a picture said to be the face of a motorist prosecutors said had been shot in the head. The victim was identified by the prosecution as the first victim to be killed in the shootings, Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia'y. Slatten is charged with firstdegree murder in his death.

On Monday, in a preview of the pho-

tos and video, lawyers for the security guards had argued that it was unfair to the defendants to show the jury the photograph the prosecution said was of Al Rubia'y. They said the picture was meaningless without testimony from a doctor or a forensics expert. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the photo alone was evidence that could be shown to the jury. But Lamberth ruled out another photo showing brain matter on the street and blood spatters on a car window.

On Monday Slatten's lawyer, Thomas Connolly, said it was "pure imagination" that the photo of the car driver amounts to evidence of Slatten firing the shot that killed the driver. Lawyers for the Blackwater defendants are focusing on self-defense and state of

mind in a war zone to explain their clients' actions.

One expert witness they plan to call would testify about the use of force in combat situations and the general threat level in Baghdad at the time of the shootings. Another expert witness will testify that certainty or absolute proof that a perceived threat was deadly or imminent was not required in order for a contractor to respond with deadly force. Rather, an individual would need only a reasonable perception, based on all the circumstances of which he was aware. Slatten could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. The other guards face a mandatory minimum penalty of 30 years in prison if they are convicted of the gun charge and at least one other charge.-- AP

`Unanswered questions'

remain on Benghazi

WASHINGTON: Hillary Rodham Clinton says many unanswered questions remain about the deadly 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, even as US authorities have captured their first suspect in the case.

Clinton, speaking in separate interviews with CNN and Fox News, said Tuesday she was still seeking information on the attacks that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans and led to numerous investigations. But she defended the Obama administration's response to the incident and said the State Department tried to respond to the fast-moving attacks that have become a focal point of criticism from Republicans. "We want to know who was behind it, what the motivation of the leaders and the attackers happened to be. There are still some unanswered questions," Clinton said on CNN. "It was, after all, the fog of war."

The potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate addressed the Benghazi investigation and a range of issues in the two interviews as part of a promotional tour for her new book, "Hard Choices," about her four years as President Barack Obama's secretary of state.

Cautious Clinton urged the Obama administration to remain cautious about working with Iran to combat fast-moving Islamic insurgents in Iraq. And she said it was unclear whether it would have turned the tide in Syria if the US had tried to help moderate rebel forces there, as she once advised. The former first lady's appearances came hours after the Obama administration announced the capture of a Libyan militant suspected in the Benghazi attacks. Clinton said the capture showed the U.S. has an "an unwavering commitment" to go after anyone who would attempt to harm Americans. A significant portion of the Fox News interview focused on Clinton's response to the Benghazi attack, reflecting criticism among Republicans that Obama and Clinton were disengaged during the incidents and later misled voters about the causes of the attacks. A new GOP-led House select committee on Benghazi could extend the issue into the next presidential campaign. The probe could figure into Clinton's political future if she seeks the White House again; Clinton said during the Fox interview that "I know you and your viewers have a lot of questions." But she said the US often sends people into dangerous places to represent its national security interests and she didn't think that should change. "I don't think we should be retreating from the world," she told CNN. The interviews also touched on several issues brewing in Congress, including investigations into the Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of political groups seeking tax-exempt status and efforts to curb gun violence and reform immigration laws.

Investigation Clinton suggested the IRS case could benefit from a "fair-minded" investigation, even though Obama has called it a "phony scandal." Clinton said, "Anytime the IRS is involved, for many people, it's a real scandal." Clinton reiterated her support for expanding background checks for firearm purchases and reinstating the ban on assault weapons. "We cannot let a minority of people - and that's what it is, it is a minority of people hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people," she said on CNN. -- AP

Georgia, Missouri carry out executions

First US executions since botched lethal injection

ST LOUIS: A Georgia inmate was executed Tuesday night in the first capital punishment in the US since a botched execution in April raised new concerns about lethal injection and intensified the debate over the death penalty.

Marcus Wellons, 59, received a lethal injection late Tuesday in Jackson, Georgia, after last minute appeals to the US Supreme Court were denied. A corrections official said he was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m. Eastern time. The execution seemed to go smoothly with no noticeable complications.

Wellons' execution came about an hour before that of inmate John Winfield in Missouri, and a third execution is scheduled for Wednesday night in Florida. Winfield was executed by lethal injection at 12:01 am and was pronounced dead at 12:10 am. Central time, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety said. The US Supreme Court had also refused late Tuesday to halt his execution, and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon denied clemency.

All three states refuse to say where they get their drugs, or if they are tested. Lawyers for Wellons and Winfield challenged the secretive process used by some states to obtain lethal injection drugs from unidentified, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

Scrunity Several states have turned to US sources for execution drugs since European companies opposed to capital punishment cut off supplies of certain drugs used in executions. Nine executions nationwide have been stayed or postponed since late April, when Oklahoma prison officials halted the execution of Clayton Lockett after noting that the lethal injection drugs weren't being administered into his vein properly. Lockett's punishment was halted and he died of a heart attack several minutes later. "I think after Clayton Lockett's execution everyone is going to be watching very closely," Fordham University School of Law

MACON: Joseph Shippen, far left, Assistant Rector of the Christ Episcopal Church in Macon, Ga., and Episcopal Bishop Rob Wright, second from left, stand with protestors outside the grounds of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Ga., before the scheduled execution of Georgia death row inmate Marcus Wellon on Tuesday. -- AP

professor Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert, said of this week's executions. "The scrutiny is going to be even closer."

John Ruthell Henry's execution is scheduled last night in Florida. Georgia and Missouri both use the single drug pentobarbital, a sedative. Florida uses a threedrug combination of midazolam hydrochloride, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Despite concerns about the drugs and how they are obtained, death penalty supporters say all three convicted killers are getting what they deserve. Wellons was convicted in the 1989 rape and murder of India Roberts, his 15-year-old neighbor in suburban Atlanta. Soon after the girl left for school, another neighbor heard muffled screams from the apartment where Wellons

was living. Later that day, a witness told police he saw a man carrying what appeared to be a body in a sheet. Police found the girl's body in a wooded area. She had been strangled and raped.

In Missouri, Winfield had been dating Carmelita Donald on and off for several years and fathered two of her children. Donald began dating another man. One night in 1996, in a jealous rage, Winfield showed up outside Donald's apartment in St. Louis County and confronted her, along with two friends of hers. Winfield shot all three women in the head. Arthea Sanders and Shawnee Murphy died.

Donald survived but was blinded. In Florida, the state is moving ahead with the execution despite claims that Henry is mentally ill and intellectually disabled. The

state claims anyone with an IQ of at least 70 is not mentally disabled; testing has shown Henry's IQ at 78, though his lawyers say it should be re-evaluated.

Henry stabbed his estranged wife, Suzanne Henry, to death a few days before Christmas in 1985. Hours later, he killed her 5-year-old son from a previous relationship. Henry had previously pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for fatally stabbing his common-law wife, Patricia Roddy, in 1976, and was on parole when Suzanne Henry and the boy were killed.

Asked Tuesday if he had discussed with the Department of Corrections what happened in Oklahoma and if any changes were needed in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said, "I focus on making sure that we do things the right way here."-- AP

Biden urges LatAm

to take in more

Gitmo prisoners

BOGOTA: US Vice President Joe Biden, on a four-country trip across Latin America, said he hoped the region would accept more Guantanamo prisoners to help expedite closing the facility, in an interview published yesterday by a Colombian newspaper.

"One of the fastest ways to accelerate the closure of Guantanamo is for other countries to agree, in a responsible manner, to receive detainees," Biden was quoted as saying in the Spanish-language El Espectador.

The vice president, who is on a regional tour coinciding with the World Cup, said during his stop in Colombia that closure of the prison remained a high priority for the United States.

Uruguay earlier this year agreed to take in five detainees, and the Uruguayan press said that Brazil had also been pressed to do so. In March, authorities in Bogota said they would also consider a request to accept prisoners.

Transfer of prisoners out of the jail-which President Barack Obama has repeatedly vowed to close-has been accelerated in recent months.

But 149 detainees still remain in the special prison created under former president George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

US administration officials are actively working to find countries which will take the detainees, as many cannot be sent home because of fears to US security or because they face persecution at home.

Biden is scheduled to meet Wednesday morning with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who was reelected just days ago in a tight run-off.

The meeting will center on the ongoing peace process that Santos's government has engaged in with the country's two leftist guerrilla groups.

Biden, who met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Tuesday, is also scheduled to visit the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. --AFP

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