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Thomas O’Connor was a special agent with the FBI for 23 years and was part of the team that went to Iraq to investigate the deaths of Iraqi civilians killed by Blackwater agents in what became known as the Al Nisour market massacre.
He was the head of the Investigation and Response Team at the FBI’s Washington Field Office in Washington. He investigated crimes and acts of terrorism committed around the world, including the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, the 1999 war crimes in Kosovo, as well as the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon.
The events occurred on September 16, 2007, when Baghdad was a dangerous place. A bomb had exploded a few kilometers from a busy artery in Baghdad’s Al Nisour Square, a short distance from the green zone of foreign embassies.
At the time of the attack, a security team provided by the Blackwater contractor was guarding a US official present at a meeting held at the headquarters of a government institution. Faced with such a situation, his task was to house it, so he called the command of the Green Zone, where the US embassy is located, to announce that they were leaving the place.
The Blackwater 23 Raven team warned that it might be necessary to assist in the removal of an official and requested permission to leave the Green Zone for this purpose. Upon receiving a refusal, the team leader decided to ignore the order and act: four armored trucks belonging to Blackwater were caught on camera leaving the Green Zone. Upon reaching the market, they blocked some of the traffic from the roundabout to clear the area for the official’s convoy. Two Iraqi highway agents stopped Blackwater truck traffic. One of the cars in traffic was a white KIA with a woman, a doctor, and her son, the driver of the car.
What happened next was the start of a series of shots that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
A Raven 23 team sniper took aim and killed the man behind the wheel of the KIA car and, as a result, hit a red car in the front. The two Iraqi traffic officers tried to stop the advance of the car.
The defendants said they feared it was a car trap as it continued to advance. The sniper, a security guard, struck the driver who took his foot off the brake. It’s one of the reasons he’s been charged with first-degree murder.
Then other members of the team started shooting, also killing the front passenger. Finally, they dropped a grenade that exploded, setting the car on fire.
The FBI experts who carried out the investigation found him by analyzing the evidence, the collision with the car ahead, and the fact that he had been hit by an M203 grenade.
The KIA car was hit by 38 bullets other than those fired into the windshield which could no longer be examined. A black-tipped bullet was recovered from the steering wheel, a type of ammunition prohibited by US rules of engagement in a war zone and contrary to US and Blackwater military regulations.
Among the cars, a little further back, was a Suzuki Trooper with members of two families. A nine-year-old boy in the back seat was shot in the head. The father, the driver of the car, testified how they tried to dodge the bullets and how, after the shooting stopped, he found his son dead. The bullet marks confirmed his words, as well as the bullet fragments recovered from the brain, allowing an analysis of the bullet’s trajectory.
Another victim was in an ice car with a business associate. Bullets were fired into the cab of the driver who tried to get out of the car after being hit by one of them. A grenade hit the driver’s door, leaving a hole and scattering fragments inside.
The two passengers were not terrorists, but businessmen: one died and the other was injured.
In this way, 17 people died, while another 20 were seriously injured. They all have the same story: they were in traffic and had a different destination than Nisour Square, where the agents defended the convoy of officials. Each of the cars hit was methodically analyzed and solid forensic evidence was obtained.
The defendants allegedly fired back at them while trying to stop traffic in Nisour Square.
“I thought that was the case before they sent us to Iraq to investigate on the ground. I worked with Blackwater agents on previous missions to Iraq and knew they were good people who had a difficult job in a dangerous environment. That said, I was determined to let the evidence guide me and help officers uncover the truth, “O’Connor writes.
One of the first things the FBI team asked for once they arrived in Baghdad was to inspect the Blackwater vehicles, badly damaged by gunfire, as had been warned. It was extremely important as proof of the reason for the incident.
From the experience of a man of law, he expected the evidence to be intact, because anyone involved in such an incident would try to preserve it.
“What happened next made more than think. The four armored vehicles involved were silver when they were seen on camera exiting the Green Zone, against orders. Or, the ones in front of us in” Man Camp “were the color from the desert sand. The impact marks, previously described as bullets, are on the sides, they were no longer there. Instead there were traces of sanding from the device with which they erased any possible signs.
The trucks were painted. Only half a cartridge had been painted, a sign that everything was done in a hurry.
They also said that a vehicle radiator was punctured by a bullet fired from traffic. After reviewing and examining the documents, the team discovered that the radiator had been repaired. So was a tire on a wheel under the driver’s seat of one of the vehicles: it had been replaced. However, the team found the tire in a room. Both the radiator and the removed tire were examined in the FBI laboratory: not a bullet was found in the tire, but a fragment of an M2023 grenade – most likely it ricocheted off the car it was thrown at.
A review of the chassis near the radiator showed a point of impact. The evidence was presented in court, it was established that it was produced by another grenade, in the same way as the one that bounced off the grenade and hit, among other things, the bench on which a child, another victim, was sitting.
The FBI team made four trips to Iraq to investigate the incident, conducted countless interviews and took more than 1,000 photographs in a collection of evidence analyzed by the world’s best examiners. They were presented at trial: the prosecution team was professional and highly competent, while the defendant had one of the best teams of lawyers. The judge was also one of the most fair and objective lawyers in the profession.
Upon presentation of evidence, the jury found the four Blackwater security officers guilty of murder, wrongful death and use of military weapons.
“The system worked and justice was done to the victims, the injured and their families. And now these families of the dead and wounded in Nisour Square will see how those responsible are freed thanks to the amnesty granted by the President of the United States. That makes me angry and sad. I spoke to Mohammed (whose nine-year-old son was killed) and he told me that he could no longer tell his family and the people of Baghdad that the system was working and that Ali had been served justice. He asked me one more question: forgiveness can be reversed. I told him no.
The purpose of this essay is to familiarize you with the victims. There is no evidence that Blackwater agents were shot. How am I so sure? The evidence showed me that, “wrote Thomas O’Connor.
The Blackwtare private security company was founded in 1997 and initially provided training services to the police, law enforcement and military organizations, receiving its first government contract in 2000.
During the Iraq war, it was one of the private companies that provided protection services to military officers and installations. The $ 21 million contract in Iraq included the security of the US occupation chief in Iraq.
In 2004, Blackwater was one of three private security companies to win contracts with the US government for security services in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Israel.
In 2006, Blackwater was hired to provide protection to Iraqi diplomats and the US embassy. About 1,000 agents were in Iraq for this purpose.
Sniper Nicholas Slatten was sentenced to life in prison.
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