Feral Jundi

   Well this sucks. Thanks to Cannoneer No. 4 for bringing this to my attention.  These guys have been through hell, and now they are being charged for murder because they actually defended themselves in a war zone.  What bothers me most, is how the company has treated them.  Paravant, a Xe subsidiary, has pulled some stuff with this case that enters the realm of abuse, and I highly suggest these guys to point their lawyers towards this amendment. If these men say they were given weapons by the company, and they were not drinking at the time, then it is up to the company to back them up unless the company has proof otherwise.

   The civilians that were killed or wounded in this incident, is tragic as well. But in war, there are numerous incidents where civilians are killed, and it is the unfortunate price that is paid by all in war.  No one wakes up one day, and decides they want to kill unarmed civilians.  And because the enemy uses vehicles for suicide bombing attacks, then I do not see how a jury could not find the logic with the defensive response of these men.  Oh, and did I mention that Justin is a former Ranger and not some mall guard who has no clue about threats in war zones?

   This stinks, and reminds me a lot of how the DoJ went after the Blackwater five in their case.  Of course this is all just my personal opinion, and because I wasn’t there, my opinion really doesn’t carry an weight.  All I can do is point any supporters of these contractors in the right direction.  I also want to remind my non-contractor/military readers that Afghanistan is not some city in the U.S., nor should people view it as such.  It is a war zone, and all actions taken by all parties have to be viewed with a war zone lens. There is a reason why security contractors are issued weapons in these areas. The way things have been going, any time a contractor uses that weapon in this war, it will be an automatic arrest and total career destruction. Pffft. –Matt

Edit: July 30, 2010 – Here is an update about these two guys.  It sounds like the judge is allowing them to face the witness in Afghanistan.

Edit: March 03,2011- The retrial for is happening this month.

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A wrecked contractor vehicle following a May 5 traffic accident in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Daniel J. Callahan/Associated Press)

The Story

Contractors Say Blackwater Armed Workers in Afghanistan

RALEIGH, North Carolina  — The security firm formerly known as Blackwater armed some of its workers in Afghanistan despite U.S. military documents that prohibited them from carrying guns, said two former contractors who were fired after they were involved in a fatal shooting in the country.

Justin Cannon and Steven McClain said Thursday that they frequently asked superiors why the company distributed the AK-47 assault rifles without Department of Defense authorization.

“We were just told, ‘Continue doing your job. Don’t worry about it. That’s above your paygrade,”‘ Cannon, 27, of Texas, said in an interview with The Associated Press. The men were involved in a shooting earlier this month that killed an Afghan and injured two others, and they recently returned to the U.S., saying they were cleared to leave after an interview with military investigators.

Blackwater, now known as Xe, has said the company’s subsidiary, Paravant, fired the men “for failure to comply with the terms of their contract.” McClain showed a letter detailing his termination, and it listed a violation of alcohol policy as the only specific reason for firing.

Both men said they weren’t drinking and hadn’t drank since arriving in Afghanistan in November. Their attorney, Daniel J. Callahan, said he believes the company is making up the alcohol issue so it can avoid scrutiny over contractors being armed.

“Blackwater’s concerned about getting kicked out of Afghanistan as it got kicked out of Iraq,” said Callahan, with Santa Ana, California-based Callahan & Blaine. “They’re trying to use these four men as scapegoats.”

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined to immediately comment on the accusations.

McClain and Cannon said the company issued weapons to the contractors even though they were supposed to train the Afghan National Army on other styles of weapons used by NATO forces. And they said the company told them to carry the weapons, even when they weren’t training, and that it was no secret that they had the guns.

“These weapons pretty much went wherever we went,” Cannon said. “If we go to the classroom, we take our weapons. If we go to the range, we take our weapons. If we leave the compound at all, we take our weapons.”

They had the guns with them as usual on the night of May 5. The men said they had dinner with some interpreters and then went to drive them to a taxi stand several miles (kilometers) away. On the way, the men said a speeding vehicle slammed into the first car of their two-vehicle convoy, causing it to roll.

McClain, 25, of California, said he was hurt and that he and his passengers had to climb out of the sport utility vehicle’s back window.

Cannon said the people in his Sport Utility Vehicle got out to help but saw that the car that had caused the accident had turned and sped toward them. Cannon said he and another contractor, Chris Drotleff, fired their weapons. He wasn’t sure how many rounds were fired.

“At that point, the vehicle was the threat,” Cannon said. “I thought I was about to get creamed by a 2,000-pound car.”

The brother of one of the wounded Afghans has said the car was full of shopkeepers heading home from work and that the people in the vehicle misinterpreted one of the Americans hitting the car as an order to move.

A passenger was hit in the stomach and died two days later, said Shah Agha, whose brother Farid was driving the car. Farid was shot in the hand and another person was injured outside the vehicle, Agha said.

McClain said three of the men who were fired in the aftermath of the shooting have left Afghanistan while a fourth, Armando Hamid, is still there. Callahan had accused the company of holding the men against their will. But they said Thursday that Blackwater told them to stay but didn’t physically detain them. They left the compound Saturday night.

Xe, which is based in North Carolina, dumped its brand name Blackwater earlier this year as it tried to distance itself from its operations in Iraq. The State Department is not renewing the company’s lucrative security work in there, which comprises an estimated one-third of Xe’s revenues.

Story here.

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How You Can Help

While your taxpayer dollars are being used to prosecute Justin, we need your support to help FREE Justin Cannon.   His legal expenses are going to be considerable.  Please donate what you can.  He needs all the help he can can get.

If you prefer to mail your donation you can send a check or money order made out to:

Rodney CannonP.O. Box 3609Fort Polk, LA 71459

Also please WRITE and CALL your Congressional Representative and Senators!

Legal Defense Fund website For Justin H. Cannon here.

Facebook page for Justin Cannon here.

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Two Individuals Charged With Murder and Other Offenses Related to Shooting Death of Two Afghan Nationals in Kabul, Afghanistan

Third Afghan National Wounded in Shooting that Led to Charges

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va., have been charged with crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia and John Perren, Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office announced today. Cannon and Drotleff were charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA).

The 13-count indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6, 2010, and unsealed today, alleges that on May 5, 2009, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Cannon and Drotleff shot and killed two Afghanistan nationals and wounded a third. The indictment alleges that at the time of the shootings, Cannon and Drotleff were Department of Defense contractors employed by Paravant LLC, which is a subsidiary of Xe (formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide). According to the indictment, as contractors, Cannon and Drotleff provided training to the Afghan National Army for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the use and maintenance of weapons and weapons systems.

Cannon was arrested today in Corpus Christi by FBI agents. Drotleff was also arrested today by FBI agents in Virginia Beach.Cannon and Drotleff were each charged with two counts of second-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, six counts of using and discharging a firearm during a violent crime, and four counts of murder resulting from the use of a firearm during a violent crime.If convicted, the maximum penalty faced by Cannon and Drotleff is life in prison or the death penalty.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Randy C. Stoker and Alan M. Salsbury from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia – Norfolk Division as well as Trial Attorney Robert McGovern of the Criminal Division’s Domestic Security Section. The case is being investigated by the FBI.

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until convicted through due process of law.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

Story here.

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Contractors in fatal shooting say they’re scapegoats

May 27, 2009

From Mike Mount

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Two U.S. security contractors involved in the shooting death of an Afghan civilian said they were pressured to say they had been drinking in order to protect the company’s contract.

“There was no question as to, ‘Were you drinking?’ It was, ‘I know you were drinking, I know this happened,’ and then pretty much trying to force us into making a statement on that,” Steven McClain told CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” in a story to air on Wednesday.

McClain and Justin Cannon were on their first job with the security company Paravant. The former U.S. military members were hired to help the U.S. Army train Afghan troops.

McClain, Cannon and two other contractors, Armando Hamid and Chris Drotleff, were involved in a shooting in Kabul on May 5 that left an Afghan civilian dead and two wounded. The U.S. military is investigating.

“If you can say that a guy was drunk, you just turned that into a personnel issue,” Cannon said.

Paravant is affiliated with Xe, the new company name for the security contractor Blackwater Worldwide. Both Paravant and Xe are owned by Erik Prince.

Xe company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell told CNN the men’s allegations are false.

“That did not happen,” Tyrrell said. “Their direction from the company was to cooperate with the investigation, and lying is not cooperating.”

Around 9 p.m., on a busy Kabul street called Jalalabad Road, the contractors said they were driving their interpreters and a car slammed into one of their two cars.

“Given the situation where we were, I immediately thought we were under attack,” McClain told CNN.

The contractors got out to help their colleagues, and the vehicle that had struck the car did a U-turn and headed back at them, the men said. The contractors fired at the oncoming vehicle.

“The car was coming at us. At that point we attempted to stop and immobilize the vehicle and we engaged it in small arms fire. And the car didn’t stop, it just kept going,” Cannon said.

The incident spotlights the issue of the role and conduct of U.S. security contractors in Afghanistan. A similar issue arose in Iraq after a September 2007 confrontation involving then-Blackwater contractors that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Blackwater lost its contract there after Iraq’s government refused to renew its operating license. The company then changed its name to Xe, and it continues to receive multimillion-dollar contracts in Afghanistan.

The U.S. and Afghan governments have yet to work out which government or entity will oversee security contractors working in Afghanistan.

An Afghan government official said the shooting case should be handled by the Afghan government. An Afghan Interior Ministry official, who declined to be named, told CNN he believed the four contractors should go before the Afghan court system.

The United States will consider whether to refer charges to the Justice Department. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Christian Kubik said he does not know how long the probe will take.

In the wake of the shooting, all four men lost their jobs with Paravant for violating the company’s alcohol policy.

“Paravant hereby notifies you that it terminates your Independent Contractor Services Agreement based on your breach of the agreement, including but not limited to a violation of Paravant’s Alcohol Policy,” read a termination document given to McClain, who provided a copy to CNN.

But McClain and Cannon deny they were drinking.

“We feel that Blackwater wanted to shift the blame from Blackwater itself to these men as if they were acting on a lark,” said the men’s attorney, Daniel J. Callahan. “Off duty, with weapons, weapons of their own, and while drinking. And I think the intent is to use these men as scapegoats.”

Callahan has been involved in another suit against Xe/Blackwater.

The contractors said they had not been drinking and had not had a drink since their arrival in November.

“I think that their main objective is to keep their business over there,” McClain said. “And so for them it’s a business move to make us the scapegoats in this.”

The men contend that Xe is concerned about the unlicensed use of firearms. It is unclear if the contractors were allowed to carry weapons while working in Afghanistan.

Cannon and McClain say they were not authorized and Paravant gave them the weapons regardless of Army regulations banning contractors from having weapons.

“We had to sign for them [guns] with our name. They were a controlled item from the company. The rules of engagement said we were not allowed to use them until we felt an imminent threat,” Cannon said.

McClain provided CNN with a copy of the letter of authorization for his job that showed no weapon would be provided. However, the document does not indicate it is not legal for them to have a weapon.

The U.S. military is unclear whether the contractors were allowed to have the weapons. A spokesman said the issue is “not cut and dry.”

“The contractors were not allowed by the original contract to carry weapons, but a local decision or memo may have provided them authorization or the perception of authorization,” Kubik told CNN.

He said that issue is still part of the investigation, but would not talk about details.

Paravant employees in Afghanistan are allowed to be armed depending on the task the contractors are hired to perform, Tyrrell said, though she declined to discuss the terms of the men’s contracts while the investigation continues.

Weeks after the shooting, three of the four contractors left the country, Callahan said. Cannon and McClain are now in Los Angeles. It is not clear where Hamid is, though Callahan said he understood he was returning to the United States.

The fourth contractor, Drotleff, made it to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and was brought back to Kabul by an Xe employee, said Callahan, who said he represents Drotleff as well.

An Xe lawyer asked Drotleff to return to Kabul, and he is cooperating in the investigation, an industry source said.

A security industry official with direct knowledge of the shooting case said Xe has no authority to clear Drotleff to leave the country. That authority belongs to the Army and the Afghan government, the official said.

Story here.