‘Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future.’
By Brett Wilkons | 23 December 2020
COMMON DREAMS — A senior United Nations human rights official on Wednesday added her voice to the chorus of condemnation of President Donald Trump’s pardons for four U.S. mercenaries convicted of massacring 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.
“The U.N. Human Rights Office calls on the U.S. to renew its commitment to fighting impunity for gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as to uphold its obligations to ensure accountability for such crimes.” —Marta Hurtado, OHCHR
Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in statement that the agency is “deeply concerned” by Trump’s December 22 pardon of former Blackwater guards Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, and Nicholas Slatten. The four men were sentenced to 12 years to life in prison for crimes including for first-degree murder for their roles in the September 16, 2007 Nisour Square massacre in central Baghdad.
“Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future,” Hurtado said of the Blackwater guards. […]
hang on, wasn’t the UN standing by when the Rwandan genocide took place? haven’t they been repeatedly implicated in rape and kidnapping? they are a much bigger part of the problem than one ill-conceived pardon.