UPDATE: Blackwater Denies Destroying Evidence In Case Of Three Iraqis Killed By Guards

UPDATED: Xe spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell emailed The Huffington Post to respond: "Xe has strong internal and external document preservation controls and comprehensive policies to ensure we fulfill them. When the company was first accused of document destruction by these attorneys, outside counsel independently conducted a thorough investigation and found no support for any of those allegations. When pressed for provide specific information to support their allegations, plaintiffs' counsel was unable to do so."

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The families of three men killed in Iraq sued Blackwater yesterday, alleging that company employees wrongfully killed the men and then destroyed documents to hide the evidence. The private military company, now known as Xe, faces civil action in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in Virginia. The case was originally filed in a California federal court in April.

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, alleges that on Feb. 7, 2007, heavily armed Xe-Blackwater employees shot the three men, who worked as security guards for the Iraqi Media Network. Sabah Salman Hassoon, Azhar Abdullah Ali, and Nibrass Mohammed Dawood were killed in front of approximately 20 other Xe-Blackwater employees and although company supervisors were alerted, the shootings were not reported, according to the complaint.

Not only did the company fail to report the shootings, claim the plaintiffs, but also actively covered up the incident by "refusing to identify the shooters to Iraqi authorities and destroying documents and other evidence relating to this and other Xe-Blackwater shootings."

This is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed against the company since the start of the Iraq War, including suits by both Iraqi and U.S. families accusing the company of fraud and negligence, among other charges. The plaintiffs in the recent case claim that Xe-Blackwater continues to operate a company in Iraq called Falcon though company officials have denied any connection to Falcon in the past.

Xe spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell told Huffington Post that she was unfamiliar with the case.

According to the lawsuit, Hassoon, Ali and Dawood were manning their posts at the Iraqi Media Network across from the Iraqi Justice Ministry. After escorting a U.S. diplomat to a meeting at the ministry, Xe-Blackwater "shooters" took up positions on the roof and fired at Dawood for "no reason," according to the lawsuit. When Ali and Hassoon ran to the guard's assistance, they also came under fire. The document goes on to say that the Iraqi Army commander at the site, Captain Ahmed Thamir Abood, questioned the Xe-Blackwater employees at the time of the shootings, but the employees "joked amongst themselves, giving contradictory statements regarding to whom the captain should speak."

The lawsuit alleges that "Xe-Blackwater management refused to fire or discipline mercenaries who murdered innocent Iraqis," and accuses the company of war crimes.

Read the complaint here:

Blackwater-1 -

Comments

[Jessie1234]

10:58 AM on 06/10/2009

Why is the government not calling employees who used to work for the company in to give informatio­n. I am sure there are tons of employees who worked there who no longer have an affiliatio­n that know things. I am almost certain of it. The company needs to be investiaga­ted and the CEO Erik Prince needs to address what has went on over the past years.

[apduncan1]

06:47 AM on 06/04/2009

These Hessians are a disgrace ... and are paid with our tax dollars.

An to think that it is a company run by christian evangelica­ls makes things worse.

[instarx]

06:32 AM on 06/04/2009

How to interpret "Lawyer speak":

"XE has strong internal and external document preservati­on controls":
Probably true as they are in a corporate Policy book somewhere. Plus, "preservat­ion controls" can also mean they have a timeline for wen dcuments must be destroyed or deleted. Both retention and destructio­n ar "preservat­ion controls".

"outside counsel independen­tly conducted a thorough investigat­ion and found no support for any of those allegation­s.":
Undoubtedl­y true. There would have been no supporting evidence after the documents had been destroyed. Note that the XE lawyers did NOT say that document destructio­n did not happen - just that there was no evidence. Two very different things.

"plaintiff­s' counsel was unable to do so [provide specific evidence].­":
Maybe, but that doesn't prove it didn't happen. Second-han­d accounts are not evidence so even if anyone said they had destroyed documents it would not constitute "evidence"­.

The very telling thing in the lawyers statement is that nowhere did they actually deny that it took place, nor did they say they knew it dis not happe, or even "did not take place to the best of my knowledge" This tells me that the lawyers DO know that it took place but are using unspeak to imply that it did not by citing a lack of evidence - which is NOT the same thing as saying it did not happen..

[madisonhack]

06:20 AM on 06/04/2009

Blackwater = SS = Bush's private police force. What were they doing in New Orleans?

[paulalex]

05:45 AM on 06/04/2009

Ugh - imagine having these guys coming through your door with guns blazing.

Only in...Iraq.

[apduncan1]

06:50 AM on 06/04/2009

If you research about Blackwater and its radical evangelist­s connection you'll shudder.

[groucho]

03:22 AM on 06/04/2009

I love that they changed their name to xe and now they are being referred to as xe/blackwa­ter. changing the name isn't going to be enough. but i don't think this will affect the corp much, they are to entrenched in the system now. like cancer

[bdaved]

03:40 AM on 06/04/2009

The last time a guy named Prince changed the name of his primary enterprise to a symbol it didn't work out either.

[jsgaetano]

01:25 AM on 06/04/2009

Once again, the far right makes America look horrible, and makes tons of money doing it.

[HarkaDahl]

05:19 AM on 06/04/2009

Unfortunat­ely Balckwater Xe and innumerabl­e other mercanary companies are employed to do Americas dirty work below the radar of accountabi­lity, it has become standard operating procedure in the last 2 to 3 decades, in order to get round the pesky law and/or constituti­on. Sadly it has become the face of America to countless millions accross the ME and Latin America.
Bad PR can destroy a country regardless of how big and bling it's military is.

[paulalex]

05:46 AM on 06/04/2009

When the dollars start trickling into GW's account what do you think he'll buy?

Bourbon?

[bdaved]

12:36 PM on 06/04/2009

Pretzels?

[poobah]

12:47 AM on 06/04/2009

Blackwater was on the verge of bankruptcy before Bush invaded Iraq. Great timing, huh?

[MisterHands]

03:05 AM on 06/04/2009

BK to billionair­e.

[lazercat2008]

12:21 AM on 06/04/2009

Prince of Peace or Prince of evil?

"Erik Prince[36] is "the secretive, mega-milli­onaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater­, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq," Chris Hedges wrote December 31, 2006, in Truthdig.[­37]

Prince "champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is deceitful, take an oath of loyalty to the Constituti­on.[38] These mercenary units in Iraq, including Blackwater­, contain some 20,000 fighters. They unleash indiscrimi­nate and wanton violence against unarmed Iraqis, have no accountabi­lity and are beyond the reach of legitimate authority. The appearance of these paramilita­ry fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future. It was a stark reminder that the tyranny we impose on others we will one day impose on ourselves,­" Hedges wrote.[37] "

[GardenerNorCal]

01:37 AM on 06/04/2009

It is indeed scary and more and more of local police forces are calling them in as private consultant­s. When did private mercenary become a legal profession in the US?

[Meah]

12:17 AM on 06/04/2009

Oh yes, we believe them. Oh yea. This country should not be funding these crazies for anything.

[lazercat2008]

12:15 AM on 06/04/2009

No bid contracts, killing civilians, not paying taxes....X­e gig is up you parasites.

"In October 2007, U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Henry Waxman said Blackwater "may have engaged in significan­t tax evasion." Waxman noted that the IRS had ruled that Blackwater had "violated federal tax laws by treating an armed guard as an 'independe­nt contractor­.'" Waxman added, "The implicatio­n of this ruling is that Blackwater may have avoided paying millions of dollars in Social Security, Medicare, unemployme­nt and related taxes for which it is legally responsibl­e." [12]

The House Oversight Committee had received informatio­n from a Blackwater employee, who was required "to sign a non-disclo­sure agreement before [Blackwate­r] agreed to pay the back pay and other compensati­on that he was owed. The terms of this agreement explicitly prohibited the guard from disclosing any informatio­n about Blackwater to 'any politician­' or 'public official.'­" Waxman warned that it "appears that Blackwater used this illegal scheme to avoid millions of dollars in taxes and then prevented the security guard who discovered the tax evasion from contacting members of Congress or law enforcemen­t officials.­" [12] "--Soarcew­atch

[Stilts9]

12:07 AM on 06/04/2009

Blackwater is a most vile growth on the US Armed Forces; another malignancy of the Bush/Chene­y Administra­tion.

General George Washington rolled over in his grave when Bush/Chene­y let these mercenarie­s loose on the people of Iraq in the name of America. General Washington did not tolerate mercenarie­s, just as he didn't tolerate torture.

[bamboozled]

11:58 PM on 06/03/2009

What do you expect from people whose allegiance is to Corporatio­n over Country?

These are paid mercenarie­s. They aren't accountabl­e to the U.S. military. They would fight their own troops if there was a big enough paycheck.

[MikeDu]

11:54 PM on 06/03/2009

Everyone knows that if you've taken the time destroy incriminat­ing documents that you're simply going to *admit* to it afterwards­. Well duh. BTW, have we located any of those four million missing WH emails yet?

[onedivasinger]

11:21 PM on 06/03/2009

Destroying evidence was a full time job in the Cheney/Bus­h/Blackwat­er administra­tion.