Blackwater Contract Killers Finally Convicted. After a Fashion.

Four former Blackwater Worldwide “security contractors” were finally convicted for killing 14 innocent civilians and wounding 17 more in 2007 when they indiscriminately opened fire at a busy intersection at Baghdad’s Nisour Square. One of the victims was nine years old. Only one of the private army “contractors,” sniper Nicholas A. Slatten, was convicted of murder; the other three — Dustin L. Heard, Evan S. Liberty and Paul A. Slough — were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and the use of machine guns in a violent crime. The sentences for the machine gun convictions may actually be longer than those for taking innocent human lives.