NORFOLK, Va., Aug. 18 (UPI) -- A defense request for federal documents in the trial of two former Blackwater contractors charged with killing Afghan civilians is too broad, a U.S. judge says.
U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar in Norfolk, Va., rejected the motion Tuesday, The Virginian-Pilot reported. Lawyers for the two contractors sought thousands of pages of material on the Afghan war, a move Doumar called "too ridiculously broad."
Christopher Drotleff of Virginia Beach, Va., and Justin Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, are charged with murdering two men in Kabul in May 2009. Their lawyers say they fired in self-defense at a car speeding in their direction.
Prosecutors said granting the motion would probably delay the trial, now scheduled to start Sept. 14. They also said much of what the defense was seeking is already available.
"The danger faced by the military and contractors is common knowledge," Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury said.
Blackwater, now Xe Services, became the most notorious U.S. military contractor when four of its employees were killed in Iraq in 2004. In 2007, a group from Blackwater mowed down 17 civilians in Baghdad.
