Four former Blackwater contractors appeal convictions in shootings

Washington — Four former Blackwater security contractors found guilty in a deadly Baghdad shooting appealed their convictions on Monday, saying a key witness against them had changed his testimony after the trial and that prosecutors lacked jurisdiction to even bring the case.

The appeals, long expected, represent the latest legal volley in a criminal case that’s spanned years in Washington’s federal court and that concluded with guilty verdicts following a monthslong trial in 2014.

Nicholas Slatten is serving a life sentence on a charge of first- degree murder. Three other former guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard — were found guilty of manslaughter and firearms charges carrying mandatory minimum 30-year sentences.

The case arose from a September 2007 shooting in Nisoor Square, with prosecutors accusing the guards in the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians. The mass killings at the crowded traffic circle in downtown Baghdad strained internation- al relations and drew immediate public scrutiny to the role of American contractors in war-torn Iraq.

At trial, the two sides presented the jury with radically different accounts of what happened: Prosecutors described the killings as a one- sided ambush of unarmed civilians, while defense lawyers said the guards opened fire only after a white Kia sedan seen as a potential car bomb threat began moving quickly toward their convoy.

Central to the appeal is a witness who defense lawyers say changed his account of what happened in a way that undermines the government’s narrative.

The witness, an Iraqi traffic officer, told jurors that the driver of the Kia was killed by the first shots that were fired in an unprovoked burst of violence that set off the rest of the rampage. He testified that after seeing the mortally wounded driver, he ran in front of the convoy with his hands up and told the guards to stop shooting.