Blackwater settles contractor death suit
Deals made with families of the four Fallujah victims
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA // Days after the last US troops left Iraq, a federal appeals court ended a lawsuit over an episode that produced one of the more disturbing images of the war: the grisly killings of four Blackwater security contractors and the hanging of two of their bodies from a bridge in Fallujah.
Families of the victims reached a confidential settlement with the company’s corporate successor, Virginia-based Academi, and the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit last week.
The deal ends the families’ hopes that a public trial would expose the events that led to Iraqi insurgents killing the four contractors in 2004 and hanging two of their corpses, said Jason Helvenston, brother of the slain Blackwater guard Stephen “Scott” Helvenston.
“The lawsuit coming to an end is no surprise to me whatsoever. It was clear this was going to be a cover-up from the beginning,” Mr Helvenston said. “You just feel the injustice of this long enough, and see that these people are just so evil, all you can do is pray to God that he’ll take care of it because that’s all you’ve got left.”
Mr Helvenston, who was not a party to the lawsuit, said he read parts of the settlement but doesn’t know all the details. He said the deal includes the company paying the families’ at- torney fees and a small death benefit to the heirs. Scott Helvenston’s exwife, Patricia Irby, confirmed those details but added how much their son and daughter will get has not yet been determined.
“I’m glad it’s over. It’s been a hard fight and the lawyers did a phenomenal job,” she said.
The men’s estates are named as plaintiffs in the case filed in 2005. The Academi spokesman John Procter declined to comment, citing terms of the confidential settlement. The families also dropped a state lawsuit dormant while the federal case was litigated, said Kirk Warner, an attorney representing the company.
Survivors of the contractors contend Blackwater failed to prepare the men for their mission into Fallujah in March 2004 and did not provide them with maps and other appropriate equipment. The men were sent in Mitsubishi SUVS to guard a supply convoy. Their survivors argued that they should have been given armoured vehicles.
A congressional investigation concurred with that view, calling Blackwater an “unprepared and disorderly” organisation on the day of the ambush. Blackwater, formerly based in North Carolina, countered that the men were betrayed by the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps and targeted in a well-planned ambush. The company said the ambush likely would have had the same result even if they had stronger weapons, armoured vehicles, maps or even more men.