A US Federal Appeals Court has overturned the dismissal of manslaughter charges against the Blackwater (now Xe) mercenaries who massacred 14 Iraqis in 2007:

The U.S. won a bid to revive its manslaughter and weapons case against four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused in the 2007 deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad intersection.


The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today reversed the decision of a lower-court judge, who dismissed the charges because statements the men made to State Department investigators may have influenced the grand jury.


“In sifting the record as to taint of the evidence before the indicting grand jury, the district court made a number of systemic errors based on an erroneous legal analysis,” said the appeals court.

Basically, the State Department promised immunity to each of the guards for their statements, and this is what led the dismissal, and the appellate court said that the immunity of each mercenary’s statements applied only to prevented their use against that specific person, and not all of them, so the lower court had to refer to each indictment, and see whether the their own statements were used against them.

The lower court judge basically issued a blanked ruling saying that if Merc A said something that implicated Merc B, it was tainted, and the appellate court said no.

Hopefully this leads some of these guys to rat out on their associates.

You can read a good analysis here.