US Mulls Unusual Tactic as Blackwater Charges Loom

As many as six Blackwater guards have been told to expect possible indictment by a federal grand jury next week for their role in the shooting deaths of 17 civilians at an Iraqi traffic circle last year, law enforcement officials tell ABC News.

(AP)

Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in the deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting of Iraqi civilians could face mandatory 30-year prison sentences under an aggressive anti-drug law being considered as the Justice Department readies indictments, people close to the case said.

Charges could be announced as early as Monday for the shooting, which left 17 civilians dead and strained U.S. relations with the fledgling Iraqi government. Prosecutors have been reviewing a draft indictment and considering manslaughter and assault charges for weeks. A team of prosecutors returned to the grand jury room Thursday and called no witnesses.

Though drugs were not involved in the Blackwater shooting, the Justice Department is pondering the use of a law, passed at the height of the nation's crack epidemic, to prosecute the guards. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 law calls for 30-year prison terms for using machine guns to commit violent crimes of any kind, whether drug-related or not.

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The people who discussed the case did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose matters that are not yet public.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment on the report.

Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, was thrust into the national spotlight after the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting. Its guards, all decorated military veterans hired to protect U.S. diplomats overseas, were responding to a car bombing when a shooting erupted in a crowded intersection.

The guards carried government-issued machine guns and drove heavily armored trucks equipped with turret guns.

Blackwater insists its convoy was ambushed by insurgents. Witnesses said the guards were unprovoked. When the shooting subsided, Nisoor Square was littered with dead bodies and blown-out cars. Weeks later, amid a growing furor over the shooting, the Justice Department dispatched FBI agents to Iraq to investigate.

The company is not a target in the case and Blackwater has cooperated with investigators.