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Lawyers for Blackwater Guards to Fight New Charges
Four former security guards charged with fatally shooting more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in 2007 intend to challenge the new indictment prosecutors filed earlier this month. The Blackwater guards…will argue prosecutors unlawfully built the new case on protected statements the guards made after the shooting, defense lawyers said at a hearing today. The guards were first charged in 2008, but that case fell apart after a judge found the government improperly relied on the guards' statements. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb Jr. told the court today he expected the indictment would survive…The government initially charged five Blackwater guards in the shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad that left 14 Iraqi civilians dead.