Washington, January 05: Prosecutors who mishandled the investigation into a deadly 2007 Blackwater Worldwide shooting face a possible misconduct citation from a judge who says they withheld evidence and violated the guards’ constitutional rights.
US District Judge Ricardo Urbina admonished the Justice Department last week for its “reckless” handling of the investigation into a shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead. He threw out manslaughter and weapons charges against five security guards and, in a footnote, said he was also considering whether the repeated government missteps amounted to misconduct.
Such a ruling would be an embarrassing cap to a politically sensitive investigation.
If Urbina rules the Blackwater prosecutors committed misconduct, it would touch off an internal Justice Department investigation.
——Agencies