NEW YORK — A senior U.N. human rights official in Baghdad suggested yesterday that private military contractors should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity after recent melees in which guards attached to the State Department used lethal fire against Iraqis.
Private security firms are coming under increased scrutiny in Iraq and in Afghanistan, where Afghan and foreign contractors have been accused of flouting the law, intimidating citizens and refusing to cooperate with authorities.
The Associated Press reported yesterday that Afghan authorities have shut down two private firms and are considering similar actions against another dozen, both local and foreign.
The Iraqi government has demanded millions of dollars in compensation for the victims of a Sept. 16 attack in Baghdad, which Blackwater claims was defensive.
The private contractors cannot be charged in Iraq, and it is not clear whether they are subject to U.S. laws. However, U.N. human rights officer Ivana Vuco said they should be subject to international humanitarian laws.
“Investigations as to whether or not crimes against humanity, war crimes, are being committed, and obviously the consequences of that, is something that we will be paying attention to and advocating for,” she said at the release of a quarterly report on human rights compiled by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq.
“We will be stressing that in our communications with U.S. authorities. This includes the responsibility to investigate, to supervise and prosecute those accused of wrongdoing,” Miss Vuco told reporters.
The report notes “killings carried out by privately hired contractors with security-related functions in support of U.S. government authorities,” as well as the presence of honor killings and sectarian violence.
The quarterly report finds 88 Iraqis killed by U.S. air strikes between April 1 and June 30, although wider statistics on injuries and deaths during the period are no longer available from the Iraqi government.
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights seized on those findings yesterday in filing a lawsuit against Blackwater in U.S. District Court in Washington, demanding unspecified damages on behalf of the families of three casualties of the Nisoor Square debacle, and one surviving victim.
As many as 17 persons were killed in the Sept. 16 shooting, which has sparked competing investigations by the Iraqi government, the State Department, the FBI and Blackwater.
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