Blackwater Worldwide security guards Donald Ball (2nd L) and Dustin Heard (R) leave the federal courthouse with their legal team and supporters after being arraigned with three fellow Blackwater guards on manslaughter charges for allegedly killing 14 unarmed civilians and... 
 
 Blackwater Worldwide security guard Nick Slatten (C) leaves the federal courthouse with attorneys after being arraigned on manslaughter charges for allegedly killing 14 unarmed civilians and wounding 20 others in a 2007 Baghdad shooting, in Washington in this January 6, 2009... 
 
 Blackwater Worldwide security guards Evan Liberty (L) and Dustin Heard (R) leave the federal courthouse with their legal team and supporters after being arraigned with three fellow Blackwater guards on manslaughter charges in a 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad, in... 
 
 WASHINGTON A U.S. federal jury found three American former Blackwater guards guilty of manslaughter and weapons charges on Wednesday and a fourth of murder in connection with the 2007 killing of 14 unarmed Iraqis at a Baghdad traffic circle. 
 
 The decision closes an emotional chapter in a case that outraged Iraqis, inflamed anti-American sentiment across the globe and touched off debate over the role of private security contractors working for the U.S. government in war zones. 
 
 A court clerk read the jury's verdict to a packed courtroom after a two-month trial and more than seven weeks of deliberations. The defendants sat and listened silently. 
 
 Paul Slough, 35, Dustin Heard, 33, and Evan Liberty, 32, were convicted of voluntary manslaughter in connection with at least 12 deaths at Nisur Square, where the heavily armed four-truck Blackwater Worldwide convoy had been trying to clear a path for U.S. diplomats. 
 
 The Washington jury also found the three guilty of attempted manslaughter in connection with the wounding of at least 11 Iraqis. They face at least 30 years in prison. 
 
 A fourth guard, Nicholas Slatten, 30, was convicted of murder in connection with the first death at the circle and faces a life sentence. 
 
 "I don’t think the jury understood what it was like to be in a war zone,” David Schertler, a lawyer for Heard, told Reuters. 
 
 Lawyers for Liberty of New Hampshire and Heard of Tennessee said they planned to appeal. Lawyers for Slatten, also of Tennessee, and Slough of Texas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 The massacre on Sept. 16, 2007, stood out for its brazenness, even during a war replete with grisly incidents, and formed a tense backdrop to talks between the United States and Iraq over the rules governing the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. 
 
 "This verdict is a resounding affirmation of the commitment of the American people to the rule of law, even in times of war," said Washington U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, whose office prosecuted the case. 
 
 Prosecutors flew 30 Iraqis to the United States to testify, including some who were wounded in the shooting, and drew on the testimony of nine other guards in the unit. One former guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2008 and testified against his former colleagues. 
 
 100 QUESTIONS 
 
 During trial, the government sought to portray the guards as recklessly unleashing massive firepower, including multiple grenades not designed for use in urban areas, on innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children. 
 
 Lawyers for the guards had argued that while the loss of life was unfortunate, the men were operating in a volatile war zone and had used their weapons only in response to incoming fire and a vehicle that appeared to be a car bomb. 
 
 The defendants' lawyers presented four of their own witnesses but extensively cross-examined government witnesses and tried to draw attention to inconsistencies in the testimony. Jurors during deliberations considered nearly 100 different questions about the shooting. 
 
 Much of the case turned on whether the unit was facing incoming fire or whether a white car realistically appeared to be a car bomb bearing down on the convoy. Slatten had been charged with the murder of the driver of the car. 
 
 The trial came after years of stumbles and false starts, as the case has dragged on amid problems with evidence, much of it due to a flawed investigation by the U.S. State Department. 
 
 "We certainly respect the court's decision in this case," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. 
 
 A grand jury first indicted five guards on manslaughter charges in 2008. A federal judge dismissed the charges the following year, saying prosecutors had relied too heavily on statements the guards gave to State Department investigators, which were explicitly not to be used for criminal prosecution. 
 
 An appeals court later reinstated the case, and prosecutors brought new charges against four of the guards last year. 
 
 But in April, prosecutors faced another setback, when an appeals court panel ended the manslaughter case against Slatten, saying prosecutors had waited too long to charge him. 
 
 The U.S. Attorney's office responded by obtaining in May the murder indictment against him, which is not subject to a statute of limitations but is harder to prove. 
 
 North Carolina-based Blackwater was sold and renamed several times. It is now called Academi, based in Mclean, Virginia. In June, Academi merged with another security contractor, Triple Canopy, which now has the same State Department contract to protect officials in Iraq that Blackwater had in 2007. 
 
 (Editing by Jason Szep and Cynthia Osterman) ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — Four former Blackwater security guards were found guilty Wednesday in the 2007 shootings of more than 30 Iraqis in Baghdad, and a federal judge ordered them immediately to jail. 
 
 FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2009 file photo, former Blackwater Worldwide security guard Dustin Heard leaves federal court in Washington. A jury returned guilty verdicts for Heard and three other former Blackwater... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this June 11, 2014 file photo, former Blackwater Worldwide guard Evan Liberty, right, arrives at federal court in Washington. A jury returned guilty verdicts for Liberty and three other former... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sept. 25, 2007 file photo, an Iraqi traffic policeman inspects a car destroyed by a Blackwater security detail in al-Nisoor Square in Baghdad, Iraq. A federal jury reached a verdict Wednesday... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Dec. 8, 2008 file photo, former Blackwater Worldwide security guards, Paul Slough, right and Nick Slatten leave federal court in Salt Lake City. A jury returned guilty verdicts for Slough,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this June 11, 2014, file photo, former Blackwater Worldwide guard Nicholas Slatten leaves federal court in Washington. A jury returned guilty verdicts for Slatten and three other former Blackwater... (Associated Press) 
 
 In an overwhelming victory for prosecutors, a jury found Nicholas Slatten guilty of first-degree murder. The three other three guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard — were found guilty of multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and gun charges. 
 
 The four men had been charged with a combined 33 counts in the shootings and the jury was able to reach a verdict on all of them, with the exception of three charges against Heard. The prosecution agreed to drop those charges. 
 
 The outcome after a summerlong trial and weeks of jury deliberation stunned the defense. 
 
 David Schertler, a lawyer for Heard, said "the verdict is wrong, it's incomprehensible. We're devastated. We're going to fight it every step of the way. We still think we're going to win." 
 
 The shootings on Sept. 16, 2007, caused an international uproar over the role of defense contractors in urban warfare. 
 
 The State Department hired Blackwater to protect American diplomats in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and elsewhere in the country. Blackwater convoys of four heavily armored vehicles operated in risky environments where car bombs and attacks by insurgents were common. 
 
 Slatten was charged with first-degree murder; the others were charged with voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and gun charges. 
 
 The case was mired in legal battles for years, making it uncertain whether the defendants would ever be tried. 
 
 The trial focused on the killings of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of 17 others. During an 11-week trial, prosecutors summoned 72 witnesses, including Iraqi victims, their families and former colleagues of the defendant Blackwater guards. 
 
 There was sharp disagreement over the facts in the case. 
 
 The defendants' lawyers said there was strong evidence the guards were targeted with gunfire from insurgents and Iraqi police, leading the guards to shoot back in self-defense. Federal prosecutors said there was no incoming gunfire and that the shootings by the guards were unprovoked. 
 
 The prosecution focused on the defendants' intent, contending that some of the Blackwater guards harbored a low regard and deep hostility toward Iraqi civilians. 
 
 The guards, the prosecution said, held "a grave indifference" to the death and injury that their actions probably would cause Iraqis. Several former Blackwater guards testified that they had been generally distrustful of Iraqis, based on experience the guards said they had had in being led into ambushes. 
 
 Prosecutors said that from a vantage point inside his convoy's command vehicle, Slatten aimed his SR-25 sniper rifle through a gun portal, killing the driver of a stopped white Kia sedan, Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia'y. 
 
 At the trial, two Iraqi traffic officers and one of the shooting victims testified the car was stopped at the time the shots were fired. The assertion that the car was stopped supported the prosecution argument that the shots were unwarranted. 
 
 Defense lawyers pressed their argument that other Blackwater guards — not Slatten — fired the first shots at the Kia sedan and that they did so only after the vehicle moved slowly toward the convoy, posing what appeared to be a threat to the Blackwater guards' safety. 
 
 Once the shooting started, hundreds of Iraqi citizens ran for their lives. 
 
 It was "gunfire coming from the left, gunfire coming from the right," prosecutor Anthony Asuncion told the jury in closing arguments. 
 
 One of the government witnesses in the case, Blackwater guard Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to killing the driver's mother, who died in the passenger seat of the white Kia next to her son. 
 
 The maximum sentence for conviction of first-degree murder is life imprisonment. The gun charges carry mandatory minimum prison terms of 30 years. The maximum prison term for involuntary manslaughter is eight years; for attempted manslaughter it is seven years. ||||| The shooting of Iraqi civilians in an incident involving US security firm Blackwater has been the subject of several investigations. Occupants of a white sedan died after the car came under fire The Iraqi government has accused Blackwater security guards of killing the civilians on the morning of 16 September 2007, while they were escorting an American diplomatic envoy in Baghdad. The company said the civilians were killed during a shootout after one of their convoys came under attack in Nisoor Square, in an affluent neighbourhood of the capital. They said the guards reacted lawfully to gunfire deliberately aimed at them. The Iraqi government, citing eyewitness reports, concluded that the Blackwater guards fired on civilians without provocation. The government, which has called for the Blackwater guards to face prosecution, welcomed news that five guards had been indicted in the US in December 2008. Details of the charges are expected to be made public later on 8 December and the five men will surrender to federal authorities in Utah, reports say. Until now, US officials have released few details of the incident as it has been the subject of an investigation by the FBI. However, in November 2007, the New York Times quoted FBI officials as saying that the killings of at least 14 Iraqi civilians had been unjustified. One of the most detailed accounts of the events according to Blackwater employees comes from an initial report by the US embassy. This was seen by the Washington Post at the end of September 2007. Embassy report It was described as a "spot report" and not intended to be authoritative. It was dated the day of the attacks. According to those accounts, Blackwater teams encountered a car bomb, a shootout and a standoff between Blackwater guards and Iraqi security forces. Each Blackwater team usually consists of three or four armoured vehicles. The report said the incident began when a car bomb exploded at 11.53 near a financial compound in Baghdad, while a US official was visiting. It also said: Two Blackwater teams transported the official back to the fortified Green Zone 
 
 Another Blackwater unit was dispatched to the scene of the car bomb to deal with the aftermath of the blast. 
 
 This unit, however, was then ambushed and "engaged with small arms fire" from "multiple nearby locations" in Nisoor Square. 
 
 One of the Blackwater teams that had transported the official back to the Green Zone was re-dispatched to help out in Nisoor Square. 
 
 The re-deployed unit found itself stuck at an intersection in Nisoor Square and was confronted by Iraqi police and army. A US forces quick reaction team was sent to help rescue the unit. Separately, The Washington Post quoted a US official familiar with the investigation as saying that at least one Blackwater guard drew a weapon on his colleagues and shouted at him to "stop shooting". The incident took place when Nisoor Square was busy with traffic Accounts of what happened to the first Blackwater unit to enter Nisoor Square have differed. Iraqi eyewitnesses have said that guards moved into the roundabout stopping the traffic. They then fired on a white sedan that had failed to slow down. According to those accounts, the car burst into flames killing the occupants. One eyewitness said Blackwater operatives had fired a rocket or grenade into the car. Those eyewitnesses say Blackwater guards then fired without provocation into the surrounding area as civilians and Iraqi officers tried to flee. They say the officers did not return the fire. Also in September 2007, an ABC news report quoted what it said were sworn statements from Blackwater employees. A number of those said that they had fired on the white car after it failed to slow down despite hand and arm signals. Another guard said he returned fire at Iraqis dressed as civilians. Eleven Iraqis were initially believed to have died in the incident, but a further Iraqi government investigation said a total of 17 people had been killed. 
 
 
 
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– Four former Blackwater security contractors were convicted today in federal court for a 2007 mass shooting in Baghdad that left Iraqi civilians dead, the AP reports. (Some accounts cite an original death toll of 14, but the BBC notes that an Iraqi investigation later raised the total to 17; about the same number were injured.) Nicholas Slatten was found guilty of first-degree murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard were found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and gun charges. The defense had claimed its clients were acting in self-defense after insurgents and Iraqi cops shot at them, while prosecutors painted a picture of the guards having a "low regard and deep hostility toward Iraqi civilians," as the AP describes it. The defendants were ordered to jail immediately. Slatten faces life in prison and the others long stretches, but all are expected to appeal. On the day of the Sept. 16, 2007, shootings in Nisur Square, Blackwater guards were trying to clear the way for a State Department convoy before shots rang out, Reuters reports. There was "gunfire coming from the left, gunfire coming from the right," as hundreds of Iraqi people in the square fled, a prosecutor said in closing arguments. The case incited Iraqi outrage and anti-American feelings around the world and made some question what rules government-employed security contractors had to follow overseas, Reuters notes. (Not surprisingly, Blackwater isn't known as Blackwater anymore.)