By DEBORAH HASTINGS – 19 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — In the past year, employees of the Blackwater USA security firm have been involved in other incidents in which they were accused of killing civilians and security forces in Iraq.
On Dec. 24, 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.
The contractor had gotten lost on the way back to his barracks in the Green Zone and fired at least seven times when he was confronted by 30-year-old Raheem Khalaf Saadoun, an official in the vice president's office said on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation.
The contractor fled after the incident. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S. Embassy, where Blackwater officials arranged to have him flown home to the U.S., said American officials.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said earlier this year the company was cooperating with investigators from the Justice Department and the FBI. She declined to provide further details.
In May, Blackwater guards under contract to the State Department were involved in two other shootings in Iraq.
In one, a Blackwater guard shot to death an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a security detail near the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, enraging Iraqis. At the time, Tyrrell said the guard acted lawfully and appropriately, given the incident reports and witness accounts.
A day earlier, Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces exchanged gunfire on the streets of the capital. A passing U.S. military convoy intervened and stopped the fighting.
Source: The Associated Press: Blackwater Guards Accused of Past Deaths
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