{"slug":"blackwater-nisour-square-pardons-2020","title":"Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Convicted of Killing Iraqi Civilians at Nisour Square (2020)","date":"2020-12-22","lastUpdated":"2026-10-04","description":"On December 22, 2020, President Trump pardoned Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, four Blackwater security contractors convicted by a US federal jury for the September 16, 2007 shooting in Nisour Square, Baghdad, in which 14 Iraqi civilians were killed and 17 wounded according to NPR. Their sentences ranged from 12 years to life; Slatten was serving life. The UN Human Rights Office said the pardons contribute to impunity and embolden others to commit such crimes.","summary":"Trump pardoned four Blackwater guards whom US courts had convicted of killing Iraqi civilians, including a 9-year-old boy, in Baghdad in 2007. The UN human rights office said the pardons 'contribute to impunity'; a survivor who testified at trial said he was 'really shocked.'","category":"rule-of-law","severity":"critical","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://text.npr.org/949679837","title":"Shock And Dismay After Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Who Killed 14 Iraqi Civilians","publisher":"NPR"},{"url":"https://theintercept.com/2020/12/23/blackwater-massacre-iraq-pardons/","title":"I Sued Blackwater for the Massacre of Iraqi Civilians. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers. (Paul Dickinson, opinion)","publisher":"The Intercept"},{"url":"https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-122220/","title":"Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency (December 22, 2020)","publisher":"The White House (archived)"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["pardons","Blackwater","Nisour Square","Iraq","private military contractors","impunity","first term"],"relatedEntries":["trump-first-term-war-criminal-pardons-gallagher","trump-pardons-political-allies-first-term","icc-sanctions-eo-13928-bensouda-2020"],"timeline":[{"date":"2007-09-16","title":"Nisour Square shooting","summary":"Blackwater guards escorting a US State Department convoy open fire in Nisour Square, Baghdad. NPR reports 14 Iraqi civilians killed and 17 wounded."},{"date":"2020-12-22","title":"Trump pardons all four","summary":"The White House announces full pardons, citing the men's military service, a D.C. Circuit ruling on evidence at Slatten's first trial, and a late disclosure about the Iraqi lead investigator."},{"date":"2020-12-23","title":"UN, survivors condemn the pardons","summary":"The UN Human Rights Office says the pardons 'contribute to impunity'; a survivor and a lawyer for victims' families condemn them (NPR; The Intercept)."}],"location":{"name":"Nisour Square, Baghdad, Iraq"},"custom":{"era":"first-term","posture":"executive-action","internationalLaw":[{"statute":"Geneva Conventions (1949)","article":"Common Article 3; GC IV Article 146","provision":"Protection of persons taking no active part in hostilities; duty to search for and prosecute persons alleged to have committed grave breaches"},{"statute":"International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights","article":"Articles 2(3) and 6","provision":"Right to life and to an effective remedy; as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee, impunity for arbitrary killings is itself inconsistent with the Covenant"}],"iccRelevance":false,"civilianCasualties":14,"victims":"Fourteen Iraqi civilians killed and 17 wounded, as reported by NPR, among them 9-year-old Ali Kinani. Paul Dickinson, a lawyer for victims' families, names in The Intercept others killed or injured, including Mahde Shamke, 25, a taxi driver, and Ghasson Mahmood, 55, a civil engineer who died of a brain injury more than a year later.","perpetrators":"President Donald Trump (pardons). The underlying killings were committed by Blackwater contractors Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, as found by a US federal jury.","structuredPerpetrators":[{"name":"Donald Trump","role":"Granted the pardons","institution":"White House"}],"keyPoints":["On December 22, 2020 Trump pardoned Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, convicted in 2014 for the 2007 Nisour Square shooting; their sentences ranged from 12 years to life, with Slatten, whom prosecutors said started the shooting, serving life (NPR).","NPR reported 14 Iraqi civilians killed and 17 wounded. Among the dead was a 9-year-old boy, named by Paul Dickinson, a lawyer who sued Blackwater on behalf of Iraqi families, as Ali Kinani, shot in the head in his father's car (NPR; Dickinson in The Intercept).","Dickinson describes the FBI inquiry as 'its most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11' (The Intercept).","The White House justified the pardons by the men's military service, a D.C. Circuit ruling that 'additional evidence should have been presented at Mr. Slatten's trial', and a late disclosure that the lead Iraqi investigator 'may have had ties to insurgent groups himself' (White House statement, December 22, 2020).","The UN Human Rights Office: 'Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes' (NPR).","Hassan Salman, a victim who testified at trial: 'I'm really shocked... I had never imagined that Trump or any other politician would affect American justice' (NPR)."],"searchAliases":["Blackwater pardons","Nisour Square","Nicholas Slatten","Paul Slough","Baghdad massacre 2007"],"legalBasis":"Presidential pardon power (US Constitution Art. II, §2); assessed against the duty to prosecute serious violations of the laws of war and the ICCPR right to an effective remedy.","postureNote":"The pardons are a matter of public record. The underlying killings were adjudicated by US federal courts; the convictions stood when the pardons were granted. No court can review a pardon. The UN Human Rights Office's statement is a political-legal assessment, not a finding.","relatedIncidents":["trump-first-term-war-criminal-pardons-gallagher","trump-pardons-political-allies-first-term","icc-sanctions-eo-13928-bensouda-2020"]}}