Four Blackwater security guards are awaiting sentences after being convicted on charges stemming from the deaths of at least 14 unarmed Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007.
A Federal District Court found former Blackwater employees Paul Slough, Dustin Heard and Evan Liberty guilty on manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges in October for the incident that occurred at Baghdad's Nisour Square.
Nicholas Slatten was convicted of murder. The American security contractors fired machine guns and grenades into noon traffic after one of them falsely claimed that their convoy was under the threat of a car bomber.
"The crimes here were so horrendous — the massacre and maiming of innocents so heinous — that they outweigh any factors that the defendants may argue form a basis for leniency," wrote the lawyers for the national security section of U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.
The U.S. government sought a 57-year sentence for Slough, 51-year sentence for Liberty and a 47-year sentence for Heard. Slatten faces a mandatory life in prison sentence without parole.
Blackwater was renamed as Xe Services and later sold and renamed to Academi.
By Andrew V. Pestano
