The government isn’t retreating from a new criminal case against a group of former private security guards who were first charged in 2008 with manslaughter for their alleged roles in a shooting in Iraq that left more than a dozen civilians dead.
The case against the former Blackwater security guards collapsed in late 2009 when a federal trial judge in Washington, D.C., concluded the government improperly relied on evidence, including protected statements the guards made to government officials in the aftermath of the gunfire. In 2011, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit revived the controversial prosecution.
