Judge won't drop Blackwater case charges

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A federal judge refused to toss charges against five U.S. security contractors accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad last year.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina in Washington Tuesday dismissed arguments brought by attorneys representing the Blackwater Worldwide guards that the government didn't have jurisdiction to file the charges, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The guards were indicted in December on federal charges of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using a firearm in a crime of violence in the controversial shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square Sept. 16, 2007. The government said the guards, employed by Blackwater at the time, were unprovoked when they rained bullets and grenades onto Iraqi civilians, killing 14 and wounding 20.

Defense attorneys argued that the guards were contracted to provide security for the U.S. State Department, not the Defense Department as the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act provides. While saying the argument was strong, Urbina ruled it was a matter that should be brought up at trial after the prosecution presents its case, the Post said.

Urbina also rejected an argument that the indictment should be dismissed because the government improperly brought charges in the District of Columbia, not in the home state of one of the defendants.

The trial is scheduled tentatively to begin next February.