Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Convicted of Killing Iraqi Civilians at Nisour Square (2020)
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.'
Record summary
Grade
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
International crime
No international crime alleged
Systematic actions that undermine fundamental constitutional or international legal protections at the structural level. Scale and definitions
- Status
- Concluded
- Incident date
- Record updated
- Location
- Nisour Square, Baghdad, Iraq
- Category
- Rule of Law
- Legal posture
- Executive action
- ICC relevance
- No
- Civilian casualties
- 14
- Sources
- 3 cited
- Stable ID
blackwater-nisour-square-pardons-2020- Legal basis
- 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.
- Posture note
- 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.
- 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.
- Alleged responsible parties
- Donald Trump, Granted the pardons— White House
Key points
- 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).
What happened
On September 16, 2007, Blackwater contractors guarding a US State Department convoy opened fire in Nisour Square, Baghdad. NPR reports that 14 Iraqi civilians were killed and 17 wounded; other counts are higher. Paul Dickinson, a lawyer who represented Iraqi families in civil suits against Blackwater, names among the dead, in an opinion piece for The Intercept, Ali Kinani, 9, shot in the head in his father's SUV; Mahde Shamke, 25, a taxi driver; and Ghasson Mahmood, 55, a civil engineer who died of a brain injury after suffering from his wounds for more than a year. The FBI investigation that followed was, in Dickinson's words, "its most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11."
A US federal jury convicted four guards in 2014. Nicholas Slatten, whom prosecutors said started the shooting, received life imprisonment; Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard received sentences that, with Slatten's, ranged from 12 years to life (NPR).
On December 22, 2020 President Trump pardoned all four. The White House statement said the men "were working in Iraq in 2007 as security contractors responsible for securing the safety of United States personnel," cited their military service, said the D.C. Circuit had ruled "that additional evidence should have been presented at Mr. Slatten's trial," and said prosecutors had "recently disclosed—more than 10 years after the incident—that the lead Iraqi investigator ... may have had ties to insurgent groups himself."
The UN Human Rights Office responded: "Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes" (NPR). Hassan Salman, wounded in the shooting, who testified at the trial, said: "I'm really shocked... I had never imagined that Trump or any other politician would affect American justice." Dickinson wrote: "These men will now be free, despite their crimes, and they will not serve the time in prison they deserved" (The Intercept).
Legal analysis
The underlying conduct. The killings took place during the armed conflict in Iraq and were adjudicated by US courts, with convictions that included first-degree murder (NPR, quoting the UN Human Rights Office). Whether they also amounted to war crimes was never tried; the US prosecuted them under domestic law, which is a legitimate way of meeting the duty to punish.
The pardon. The act assessed here is the pardon, not the shooting.
- Duty to prosecute and punish. The Geneva Conventions oblige states to bring to justice persons who commit grave breaches, and the ICCPR's right to an effective remedy (Art. 2(3)) has been read by the Human Rights Committee to make impunity for arbitrary killings a violation in itself. As the UN office noted, the US had met its obligations by prosecuting the guards. The pardon then reversed that result, releasing people convicted of killing civilians before they had served their sentences.
- Not a Rome Statute crime. A pardon is not an act listed in Articles 6, 7 or 8, and it is not complicity in a completed crime under Article 25(3). It does not meet any international-crime definition.
Strongest defence argument. The pardon power is plenary under the US Constitution, and the White House gave case-specific reasons: Slatten's first conviction had been overturned on appeal, and the government disclosed late that an Iraqi investigator may have had insurgent ties. These reasons might bear on Slatten's retrial. They do not explain pardoning all four men, three of whom were not the subject of the appellate ruling cited, and they do not rebut the jury's findings that civilians were unlawfully killed.
Why this grade
Critical. The rubric places structural attacks on accountability in critical. Wiping out the sentences of men convicted by US courts of killing civilians in a war zone undoes the one form of accountability the case produced and, in the UN office's words, emboldens others. The grade matches the archive's entry on the Gallagher and related war-crime pardons. It is not extreme because a pardon is not itself a Rome Statute crime, and no international-crime evidence classification is assigned.
International law engaged
| Instrument | Provision | What it protects or prohibits |
|---|---|---|
| Geneva Conventions (1949) | Common Article 3; GC IV Article 146 | Protection of persons taking no active part in hostilities; duty to search for and prosecute persons alleged to have committed grave breaches |
| International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights | Articles 2(3) and 6 | 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 |
Sequence of events
-
Nisour Square shooting
Blackwater guards escorting a US State Department convoy open fire in Nisour Square, Baghdad. NPR reports 14 Iraqi civilians killed and 17 wounded.
-
Trump pardons all four
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.
-
UN, survivors condemn the pardons
The UN Human Rights Office says the pardons 'contribute to impunity'; a survivor and a lawyer for victims' families condemn them (NPR; The Intercept).
Sources
- Shock And Dismay After Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Who Killed 14 Iraqi Civilians — NPR
- I Sued Blackwater for the Massacre of Iraqi Civilians. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers. (Paul Dickinson, opinion) — The Intercept
- Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency (December 22, 2020) — The White House (archived)