Slain Iraqi's family sues Blackwater

• Tweet

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 8 (UPI) -- U.S. security contractor Blackwater USA and its founder Erik Prince have been named in a lawsuit alleging a war crime in Iraq, documents indicate.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., accuses Blackwater, now known as Xe, and Prince of allowing one of its guards to recklessly use deadly force in the 2006 shooting of Raheem Khalaf Sa'adoon, 32, a bodyguard to Iraq's vice president, SeattlePI.com reported Monday.

The U.S. Web site quoted U.S. investigators as saying no decision has been made whether to criminally charge former Blackwater employee Andrew Moonen, 28, of Seattle, in the incident, in which Sa'adoon's family alleges Moonen shot the Iraqi without provocation while he was guarding a private home in Baghdad's Green Zone.

Susan Burke, a Philadelphia attorney representing Sa'adoon's family, reportedly alleges in the suit that Xe "routinely sends heavily-armed 'shooters' into the streets of Baghdad with the knowledge that some of those 'shooters' are chemically influenced by steroids and other judgment-altering substances."

Moonen's attorney, Stewart Riley, disputes that, telling SeattlePI.com, "Basically, his position is that he was shot at in the Green Zone and he ran for his life," Riley said.