A former security guard for the US firm Blackwater has been found guilty of murder for his role in a notorious massacre of unarmed civilians in downtown Baghdad in 2007.
Nicholas Slatten, 35, was convicted of first-degree murder by a federal jury in Washington on Wednesday after five days of deliberations.
Slatten was convicted of killing Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y, 19, an aspiring doctor who was one of more than a dozen civilians killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad’s Nisour square on 16 September 2007.
This is the third attempt to obtain justice against this murder: his first conviction (in 2014) was thrown out, and a jury was unable to reach a verdict in a second trial. Hopefully this time it will stick.