Private military companies and war crimes

1.

Private military companies
and war crimes
Ilyichev Aleksey
МО/м-19-1-о

2.

PMC in modern world
Blackwater operators in Iraq

3.

What is «PMC»?
• Carlos Ortiz defines private military
companies as:
• «Legally established international firms
offering services that involve the potential
exercise of force in a systematic way and by
military or paramilitary means, as well as
the enhancement, the transfer, the
facilitation, the deterrence, or the defusing
of this potential, or the knowledge required
to implement it, to clients».

4.

War crimes
Soldiers with the Saudi-led coalition stand guard in
the port city of Hodeida on 22 January, 2019 (AFP)
• Technically, war crimes are defined in the
statute that established the International
Criminal Court (ICC), which includes grave
breaches of the Geneva Conventions, such as
• wilful killing, or causing great suffering or
serious injury to body or health;
• torture or inhumane treatment;
• unlawful
wanton
destruction
or
appropriation of property;
• forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the
forces of a hostile power;
• depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial;
• unlawful deportation, confinement or
transfer; and
• taking hostages

5.

US Army soldiers from the 11th Air Defense
Artillery Brigade during the Gulf War
A Blackwater Security Company MD-530F helicopter
aids in securing the site of a car bomb explosion in
Baghdad, in December 2004, during the Iraq War.

6.

The former Blackwater security guards, from left
Paul A. Slough, Dustin L. Heard, Nicholas A.
Slatten and Evan S. Liberty.
A vehicle that was destroyed in the 2007
Blackwater attack in Baghdad

7.

Erik Prince – founder and former CEO of
Blackwater military company
Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq

8.

«Because of its power and global interests U.S.
leaders have committed crimes as a matter of
course and structural necessity. A strict
application of international law would … have
given every U.S. president of the past 50 years a
Nuremberg treatment»
Edward Herman - American economist, media scholar and social critic.

9.

A mistrial was declared in the retrial of Nicholas
Slatten, a former Blackwater contractor accused in
the shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis in
Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007.
Dustin L. Heard, center, a former Blackwater
security guard, was sentenced to more than 12
years in prison for his role in a 2007 shooting of
unarmed civilians in Baghdad.

10.

Soldiers of ESA (European Security
Academy

11.

Conclusion
Aegis operators on the training field
ACADEMI operators training.

12.

Thanks for your attention!