Rochester man gets 30 years in '07 Iraqi massacre

Evan S. Liberty (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - A Rochester man who worked for the former Blackwater USA security contractors firm was sentenced on Monday to 30 years plus a day for his part in a deadly shooting melee in Iraq in 2007 in which 14 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Evan S. Liberty, 32, of Rochester was sentenced by a federal judge despite pleas for mercy from dozens of family and colleagues who were at the courthouse in support of the four men sentenced.

The incident in question occurred Sept. 16, 2007, when the four former serviceman set up a perimeter in Baghdad's Nisoor Square to facilitate a possible evacuation after the report of a car bomb that had detonated near where U.S. diplomats and Iraqi officials were meeting.

Liberty and his three codefendants were part of a Blackwater tactical support team called "Raven 23."

According to prosecutors, the atrocity began when Raven 23 opened fire on a small car that had approached an intersection, killing the driver. Heavy machine-gun fire continued from the Blackwater convoy, directed at the car, other vehicles and eventually unarmed civilians.

Among those killed were a female dermatologist, a 40-year-old car salesman, a 55-year-old ironworker and a 9-year-old boy named Ali who was in a car with his father

Liberty, a 32-year-old former Marine Corps embassy guard, was found guilty of eight counts of voluntary manslaughter, 12 counts of attempted manslaughter, and one firearms offense.

The men were prosecuted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows civilian prosecution of people employed by or accompanying the armed forces overseas or working in support of a Defense Department mission. The former security contractors with the North Carolina-based company were the first non-Defense Department contractors charged under the law.."