Agence France-Presse,
WASHINGTON: A top US legislator demanded information Tuesday over reports that the State Department offered immunity to Blackwater employees in the wake of a Baghdad shooting that left 17 civilians dead.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to explain whether the private security group, which protects US diplomats in Baghdad under a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, had been offered protection from prosecution when the State Department investigated the September 16 shooting.
On Tuesday US media reported that the Blackwater guards were promised immunity during the department's inquiry.
According to The Washington Post, FBI agents now investigating the shootings are barred from using any of the information obtained in the State Department probe.
“Press reports today indicate that DS (Department of State) agents offered grants of immunity to Blackwater employees after the September 16 shooting incident in Baghdad. Are these reports accurate?” Biden asked in a statement.
“If so, who authorized these grants of immunity? Was there consultation with the Department of Justice prior to such grants of immunity?” the Democrat asked.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the department did not have the authority to give someone immunity from federal criminal prosecution.
“The kinds of, quote, 'immunity' that I've seen reported in the press would not preclude a successful criminal prosecution,” he said.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd Tuesday called the reports “inaccurate” but gave no details.
“The Justice Department and the FBI cannot discuss the facts of the Blackwater case, which is under active investigation. However, any suggestion that the Blackwater employees in question have been given immunity from federal criminal prosecution is inaccurate,” Boyd said in a statement.
If the reports of the immunity offer are accurate, though, it could reignite the controversy in the Iraqi capital over the role of private security firms such as Blackwater USA in the war-torn country, which a recent Defense Department report characterized as out of control.
The New York Times Tuesday said officials in the State Department's investigative unit, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, made the immunity offer though they lacked authority to do so.
Most of the guards involved in the shooting were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in interviews as long as their statements were truthful, the Times reported.
And one law enforcement official told the Washington Post that some Blackwater guards cited the immunity promises in refusing to be interviewed by the FBI, which took over the investigation this month.
McCormack Tuesday sought to distance Rice from the scandal, emphasizing that her attitude is that “if there are individuals who broke rules, laws or regulations, they must be held to account.”
It was Rice who had asked the FBI to take over the investigation, he added.
Blackwater guards protecting a State Department convoy opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square on September 16, killing 17 civilians.
Although Blackwater guards had claimed they were fired on first, most accounts from the scene insisted that no one ever fired on the US convoy.
Blackwater boss Erik Prince has rejected an official Iraqi report that said the killings were unprovoked, insisting his men were fired upon.
The Iraqi government has called for Blackwater to be barred from operating in the country.
On Tuesday the Iraqi cabinet backed a law revoking immunity granted to private security firms operating in the country issued in 2004 by then US administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer.
“These companies will not get immunity and will be subject to Iraqi law,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.
