4 Americans investigated in Afghan death

Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 7:05 AM Posted by Beijing News


KABUL – Four U.S. contractors for the private security company formerly known as Blackwater are accusing the company of holding them against their will in Afghanistan following their involvement in a shooting this month, a lawyer said Saturday. A spokeswoman for the company denied the allegation.

An Afghan died and two others were wounded in the May 5 shooting, which followed a car accident in Kabul, said Lt. Col. Chris Kubik, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul.

Blackwater was involved in a 2007 shooting in a busy square in Baghdad, Iraq, that left as many as 17 Iraqi civilians dead and led to the end of its Baghdad operations this month. It has since changed its name to Xe.

The nature of the shooting and the allegations made by the lawyer highlight the murky legal world in which private security companies operate in Afghanistan.

A California lawyer, Daniel Callahan, contacted by the contractors told The Associated Press that the U.S. Army had cleared the four men to leave Afghanistan on May 12 after completing their questioning in the shooting. But the men are now being held against their will by the company's executives in a company "safe house" in a Kabul mosque, he said.

The men believe that Xe is attempting to negotiate a deal in which it would hand them over to Afghan authorities in exchange for official permission to remain in the country, Callahan said.

Kubik said the U.S. military in Afghanistan is still investigating the incident, and that he did not know whether the four had been cleared to leave the country.

The contracting company took the four away on Thursday from a military compound where they normally lived and they were never detained by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Kubik said.

Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Xe — based in Moyock, North Carolina — denied that the four were being held against their will, and said they were Xe contractors employed by a company named Paravant.

"What I can tell you is that they have been terminated and have been asked not to leave the country without the approval and direction of the Department of Defense," Tyrrell told the Associated Press.

"Paravant terminated the contracts with the four individuals involved in the incident for failure to comply with the terms of their contract, which require, among other things, compliance with all laws, regulations, and company policies," Tyrrell said. She did not specify what company policy they had violated.

The company is cooperating in the military investigation, said Kubik, the spokesman for the Combined Security Transition Command, which is involved in the training of Afghan security forces and for which the contractors worked.

"If the investigation finds some fault, culpability ... that will be looked at by legal personnel to determine future actions," Kubik said.

A U.S. military statement following the incident said the contractors were involved in a vehicle accident in Kabul on May 5.

"While stopped for the vehicle accident, the contractors were approached by a vehicle in a manner the contractors felt threatening," the statement said.

The contractors fired at the vehicle, wounding two Afghans, said the initial statement, issued May 6.

Callahan, who said he had spoken with at least two of the contractors involved in the incident, gave a different account.

Associated Press writers Jonathan Drew in Atlanta and Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.





The top of a dandelion seed head is seen in Marysville, Pa. AP/Carolyn Kaster

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