Pilgrims provides safe passage for Fitzsimons’ family members to son’s trial in Iraq

Pilgrims Group has helped the family of incarcerated ex-soldier Danny Fitzsimons attend their son’s trial in Iraq.

Brian Sims reports at Info 4 Security

Accused of murder, Danny Fitzsimons was being held in Iraq’s Karadt Mariam police station when his family lost all hope of seeing their son.

When no other companies would assist, Pilgrims offered the Fitzsimons family a low cost solution that ensured their safe passage in Iraq by providing secure accommodation, transport to and from the airport and safe passage to and from the courthouse where their son was being held.

His family had not seen Fitzsimons since he flew to Iraq to work as a security contractor for another company in August 2009. They wanted to see their son before a verdict on the trial was reached, but required security assistance to ensure their safety.

A campaign by the Fitzsimons family to bring Danny back to the UK based on his history of mental health issues had been ignored by the British Government, while requests for support from major security firms had hit a brick wall leaving them with very few options.

A £9,000 contribution had been made by the company that originally employed Fitzsimons to work in Iraq, but money alone was not sufficient for the family to make such a high profile trip.

Importantly, specialist understanding of the city of Baghdad was required.

Deserving of assistance

Bill Freear, the managing director of Pilgrims, told The Independent newspaper that while he could not comment on the events that led to Fitzsimons’ imprisonment, he also recognised that Fitzsimons’ family were “completely innocent” and deserved assistance to see their son.

Freear went on to say: “While Pilgrims is not as large as some of the big private security companies, we have always operated in an ethical manner and have always been able to sleep at night.”

He added that Pilgrims had the capability to help, and was pleased that the company was able to do so.

Please read more at Info 4 Security

Read more about Pilgrims Group here

Facing piracy, ship security firms set ethics code

By Jonathan Saul   Reuters LONDON | Mon May 9, 2011

(Reuters) – Maritime security firms have come together to create a code of conduct and ethics, prompted by alarm over the rising number of companies without seaborne experience aiming to cash in on the surge in Somali piracy.

Increasingly violent attacks on merchant ships and crews by Somali gangs have led more ship owners to consider deploying private security teams on board vessels, attracting companies previously operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There are literally hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan ‘expatriates’ setting up shop, never having been aboard a ship before, much less knowing how to defend it,” said John Dalby of security company Marine Risk Management.

“We have fears that a glut of inexperienced and unqualified so-called maritime security operators are bringing the legit guys into disrepute.”

Dalby is one of the founders of the International Association of Maritime Security Professionals (IAMSP), a self-regulated, voluntary body seeking more transparency in the sector. Its code of conduct includes ensuring members are properly trained, abide by laws and regulations where they operate, act ethically and do not accept bribes.

“Private security in the marine sector is currently not regulated in the way that it is on land. There is a big worry this could be opening the doors to a lot of cowboys,” said Andrew Linington with seafarers’ union Nautilus International.

Please read the entire story here

Two Security Firms Win Big Iraq Contracts

Iraq Business News  May 6, 2011

Two more security firms have won contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build the State Department a private army in Iraq, according to a report from Wired’s ‘Danger Room’.

Contractors Triple Canopy and newcomer Global Strategies Group will contribute to the State Department’s planned protection force of 5,500 contractors.

In September, the State Department announced that eight security firms would share in a $10 billion contract to guard diplomats. Both Triple Canopy and Global were among those firms, which have the right to bid on so-called “task orders” for protecting specific department operations around the world.

One of the first task orders awarded was to SOC, to safeguard the Baghdad embassy, a deal that would net the company up to $973 million over five years.

At the time, that looked like a slap to Triple Canopy, which has provided security forces for the massive compound since 2005, earning itself $438 million in the process.

But while SOC will guard the embassy itself, in what’s called “static security,” Triple Canopy will perform “protective security services” for its residents; When diplomats travel around the Iraqi capital, it’ll be guards for Triple Canopy who’ll protect them.

Triple Canopy has been doing that work since Iraq kicked Blackwater out in 2009 and the State Department (briefly) ended its contract with the firm. It’s more lucrative than guarding a building. Triple Canopy will earn $1.53 billion if the contract runs for the full five-year span of the task order.

Blackwater’s New Ethics Chief: John Ashcroft

by Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Danger Room

The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.

Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement, an entity designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private security industry.”

In other words, no more shooting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan; no more signing for weapons its guards aren’t authorized to carry in warzones; no more impersonations of cartoon characters to acquire said weaponry; and no more ‘roids and coke on the job.

Ashcroft’s arrival at Xe is yet another clear signal it’s not giving up the quest for lucrative government security contracts now that it’s no longer owned by founder Erik Prince, even as it emphasizes the side of its business that trains law enforcement officers. In September, it won part of a $10 billion State Department contract to protect diplomats, starting with the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem. Ashcroft, a U.S. senator before becoming attorney general in the Bush administration, is a very known quantity to the federal officials that Xe will pitch. Even if he’s not lobbying for Blackwater, Ashcroft’s addition on the board is meant to inspire confidence in government officials of its newfound rectitude.

Please read more here

Ten Afghan Security Guards Killed by NATO Strike

Rueters Security Developements in Afghanistan May 3, 2011

* GHAZNI – Ten Afghan security guards were killed when a strike by aircraft from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) inadvertently hit their convoy carrying supplies for ISAF troops in the Gilan district of central Ghazni province, Ghazni police chief Zelawar Zahid said. The aircraft mistook the convoy for insurgents, he said. There was no immediate comment from ISAF on the strike

Appeals Court Reinstates Blackwater Manslaughter Case in D.C.

By Blog of the Legal Times  April 22, 2011 

A federal appeals court today reinstated the prosecution of a group of Blackwater security guards charged in Washington with manslaughter and weapons violations for their alleged roles in a shooting in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen civilians.

In December 2009, Judge Ricardo Urbina of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the Justice Department prosecution of five guards, saying the prosecution was tainted through the improper use of compelled statements the defendants made to investigators following the shooting in September 2007. DOJ appealed the ruling.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously reversed Urbina’s decision, sending the case back to the trial court for further hearings. The appeals court’s 17-page redacted opinion is here. (The court simultaneously filed a confidential opinion under seal. The court heard oral argument in a closed session in February.)

Lawyers for the guards were not immediately reached for comment this morning. Steptoe & Johnson counsel Bruce Bishop argued for the guards, collectively, and the Justice Department’s Demetra Lambros of the Criminal Division appellate section represented the government. “We’re pleased with the ruling and are assessing the next steps,” DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd said.

After the fatal shooting, the Blackwater guards provided sworn written statements to the State Department on forms that included a guarantee that the information would not be used in a criminal proceeding. Urbina found disclosure of the defendants’ statements tainted much of the evidence federal prosecutors presented to a grand jury.

The D.C. Circuit remanded the prosecution with instructions for Urbina to determine what evidence the government presented against each defendant that was tainted and “in the case of any such presentation, whether in light of the entire record had shown it to have been harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The panel judges—Senior Judge Stephen Williams and Judges Merrick Garland and Douglas Ginsburg—said in the court’s ruling that Urbina made “a number of systemic errors based on an erroneous legal analysis.”

The court said, among other things, the “presence, extent and possible harmfulness” of tainted evidence must be reviewed on an individual basis even though the government brought a single indictment charging five guards.

“To the extent that evidence tainted by the impact of one defendant’s immunized statements may be found to have accounted for the indictment of that defendant, it does not follow that the indictment of any other defendant was tainted,” Williams wrote in the ruling for the appeals court. “The district court assumed the contrary.”

The D.C. Circuit also said Urbina failed to detail what statements from the guards “played exactly what role” in guiding the government’s investigation of the shooting in Iraq. “We cannot uphold the judgment of dismissal to the extent that it rests on such vague propositions,” the appeals court said.

Four guards–Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Donald Ball–face the potential for further prosecution in Washington federal district court. Prosecutors abandoned the case against the fifth guard, Nicholas Slatten. But DOJ moved to dismiss without prejudice, reserving the right to seek re-indictment.  Please see the original at Blog of the Legal Times

Mozambique Court Releases G4S Guards

All Africa.com

Maputo — The Mozambican judicial authorities on Thursday ordered the release of the 24 workers from the firm Group Four Securicor (G4S) who were jailed in Maputo awaiting trial on charges relating to demonstrations outside the G4S offices on 6 April.

The decision was made by Judge Ana Felisberto Cunha of the Maputo Judicial Court, on presentation of declarations of identity and residence by the strikers

The release of the workers comes after the company withdrew the criminal complaints it had made against the group. According to G4S managing director, Pedro Baltazar, the decision to withdraw the charges was taken during a meeting of the Board of Directors held in Maputo on Monday as part of efforts to find a peaceful solution to the labour dispute at the company.

Please read the entire article here

State Department Says No to Mercs at Sea

The U.S. State Department may have given rise to modern-day private armies with its personnel security contracts to protect diplomats in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean department officials want to see guns-for-hire on the high seas.

by Sharon Weinberger at Wired’s Danger Room

The prospect of having armed security guards ward off pirates presents a number of legal problems, according to Donna Hopkins, the Coordinator for Counter Piracy and Maritime Security in the State Department. “I think the legal and political implications of private, armed escorts at sea are hugely problematic and not likely to be answered in the next year or two,” she said earlier this week at the Navy League Sea Air Space Exposition.

The number of Somali-based pirate attacks has exploded over the past few years, as have the ransoms the pirates demand for safe return of ships and crewmembers. Pirates holding hijacked ships now often command between $3 and $5 million in ransom.

Despite that growing security threat, the State Department is wary of companies providing security services to combat piracy. “As a matter of policy and philosophy for many years, governments have reserved for themselves the right maintain a monopoly on the use armed force,” Hopkins said. “The idea of armed escorts on the high seas calls into question some serious philosophy in that regard.”

In fact, most ship-owners have been hesitant to turn to private security contractors, fearing the liability associated with playing host to armed guards outweighs any benefits they might provide. That may now be changing, with more companies looking to private companies to protect them from pirates.

“I do think you see a growth in the market,” said Doug Brooks, president of the International peace Operations Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents private security and stability operations contractors.

The lack of support from State Department for such contractors could be viewed as ironic, given that the department’s Diplomatic Security bureau was responsible for one of the most notorious armed security contracts of all times: the Worldwide Personal Protective Services contract to Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe Services.  The Blackwater contract in Iraq eventually ran afoul of the local government, particularly after the Nissour Square massacre.

At sea, ships face different government laws at each port they visit, making such services even more complex. Even some companies interested in the market have balked at the potential barriers.

Merc’s to Watch Commandoes backs in Afghanistan

They may be some of America’s most elite troops. But these days, even U.S. special operations forces are relying on guns for hire in Afghanistan.

by Noah Schactman at Wired’s Danger Room April 7, 2011

On Wednesday, U.S. Special Operations Command announced that it was looking for Afghan security contractors to guard commando encampments, from the tiniest of outposts to the biggest of the superbases.  And those private guards need to be ready to work ASAP. The command is planning on issuing contracts next Friday, April 15th.

Using guns for hire to patrol Afghan bases is nothing new. For years, the U.S. military has employed the contractors, to free up American troops for frontline fighting and nation-building.

This case is unusual, for several reasons. Not only has SOCOM issued these calls for contractors just as Afghan president Hamid Karzai is threatening to tax the private security forces out of existence. But, at least in one instance, the special operators want these guards to watch the backs of a small handful of American troops. And that involvement could undermine the special operators’ mission.

Please read the entire story here

Private Security Contractor Adam Carney’s Family must pay to repatriate body????

Update April 5, 2011 6pm

Family Still Waiting to Bury Son who died in Afganistan

Two weeks after he died of a massive heart attack, former Atlanta police officer Adam Carney’s body is expected to be returned home from Afghanistan, where he was helping train that country’s nascent police force.

But his parents haven’t planned his funeral yet, saying Adam Carney’s employer, DynCorp International, has provided them with “non-answers” and conflicting information about when they could claim the 34-year-old Navy veteran’s remains.

“No mother wants to bury their son,” Wanda Carney told the AJC on Tuesday. “This has just been more torture. No one should have to go through this.”

The Carneys, who flew in from Ohio soon after learning of their son’s death on March 28, say they were informed Tuesday morning that he would be transported to Dover Air Force Base, where an autopsy will be performed. They hope to have the father of two back in Atlanta by the weekend.

“We couldn’t understand what took so long,” said Adam’s father, Michael Carney. “They kept saying, ‘We don’t know.’ Well, why don’t you know?”

A DynCorp spokeswoman said she understands the Carneys’ frustration but adds the delays were out of the company’s control.

With all the blood and misery we deal with here everyday you would think we could not be more outraged than we are today by this….

We’ll be announcing the name of the company asap.

Join law enforcement officers for fundraiser in honor of Adam Carney

DECATUR, Ga. – Former military officer and retired APD officer, Adam Carney died of an apparent heart attack in Afghanistan on Monday night. Carney worked overseas as a civilian contractor. The family must pay to have his body flown back to the United States and buried.

The family and Humble Heroes-Police Memorial are hosting a fundraiser on Tuesday, March 29 from 4:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. at Avellino’s Pizza at 902 W. College Avenue in Decatur.  Avellino’s will, also, be donating a percentage of proceeds to the Law Enforcement Memorial Ride or the Unity Tour.

Carney’s brother, Josh, currently works as an APD officer and patrols the Zone 6 area. He is survived by a three year old and five year old.

Three killed in convoy attack in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 4 (UPI) — Islamist rebels in northwestern Pakistan cut the throats of three security guards in the latest fatal attack on a NATO truck convoy headed for Afghanistan.

The guards were killed at a NATO truck terminal in the town of Landi Kotal in the Khyber tribal district near the Afghan border.

Suspected Taliban and al-Qaida rebels also damaged 10 oil tankers carrying fuel to resupply international troops in Afghanistan, a local Pakistan government administrator said.

Blackwater founder questions FBI work

In the deposition, released by the lawyer who is suing Prince and the company, the Blackwater founder placed much of the responsibility of warzone activity on the government. He said contractors the company provided were screened and approved to the State Department’s standards. He said State Department officials set and enforced the rules of engagement.

AP NewsBreak

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The founder of the security firm once known as Blackwater questioned in a sworn deposition how federal authorities handled their investigation of an infamous Baghdad shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Erik Prince said during the seven-hour testimony that he didn’t believe the FBI fully investigated the sources of all the used bullets in Nisoor Square, arguing that it would have been helpful for the defense to have a complete ballistics report.

“It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there,” Prince said. His comments about the case and throughout the deposition underscore how tensions between the government and one of its go-to contractors have lingered for years.

Please read the entire article here

US Baghdad embassy will double in size

A private security force some 5,500 strong will protect the large US diplomatic presence in Iraq, Jeffrey told the lawmakers

AFP  April 1, 2011

BAGHDAD — The US Embassy in Baghdad, already the largest in the world, is expected to double its staff after American forces pull out of the country later this year, Washington’s envoy said on Friday.

“We’ll be doubling our size if all of our plans go through and if we receive the money from Congress in 2011 and then again in 2012,” James Jeffrey, the US ambassador in Iraq, told reporters.

He said the staff would increase “from 8,000 plus personnel that we have now to roughly double that by 2012,” adding that US forces would make up only a very small part of that number.

“This will be an extraordinarily large embassy with many different functions. Some we took over from USFI (United States Forces in Iraq) and some of them continuation of the work we are doing now.”

Jeffrey said that US military advisers and trainers would stay or be added to support the Iraqi military with US-made equipment such as M1A1 tanks and other weaponry. He said the added personnel would not include combat troops.

Please read the entire article here

Eight U.N. staff killed in Mazar-e Sharif, two beheaded

Reuters) –

Eight foreign employees of the United Nations were killed on Friday in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif after protesters over-ran their compound, police said, in what looks to be the deadliest ever assault on the U.N. in Afghanistan.

Two of the dead were beheaded by attackers who also burned parts of the compound and climbed up blast walls to topple a guard tower, said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman for the northern region.

The chief of the mission in the city was wounded but survived, and the dead included employees of Norwegian, Romanian and Swedish nationalities, he added.

Four Nepalese Guards were reported killed

Global Post Asia Pacific April 1, 2011   12.10

At least eight foreign United Nations workers were killed Friday, two of them beheaded, in an attack on a U.N. compound in the northern Afghanistan by demonstrators protesting a Quran burning by a U.S. pastor.

Protests against the burning of a Quran by Florida Pastor Wayne Sapp of a Quran on March 20 were held in several Afghan cities on Friday, Afghanistan’s Noor TV channel reported.

The Quran burning took place in the presence of Terry Jones, another U.S. pastor who last year drew condemnation over his aborted plan to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The U.N. workers — including five guards working for U.N. and two other people employed at the complex, the AP reported — were killed in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif when the protest there suddenly turned violent.

Afghanistan Crossroads CNN April 1, 2011  11:00

Eight workers for the U.N. and four Afghans were killed, said Abdul Rauof Taj, security director of Bulkh province. At least 24 people were injured, he said.

The attack followed a demonstration against the reported burning of a Quran this month by Florida pastor Terry Jones, who gained international attention last year with his plans to burn a Quran, the U.N. source with knowledge of events said.

Jones is the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. He canceled plans to burn a Quran last year, on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Last month, however, with far less attention than he attracted last year, Jones reportedly burned Islam’s holy book.

The church says on its website that it “put the Koran on trial. The event is over, the Koran was found guilty and a copy was burned inside the building.”

The attack on Friday happened at the operations center of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in Mazar-e Sharif, said Dan McNorton, a U.N. spokesman.

“The situation is still confusing and we are currently working to ascertain all the facts and take care of all our staff,” he said.

Initial indications are that knives and small arms were used in the attack, according to a U.N. spokesman who declined to be named.

Finnish Security Firm Still Hoping to Work For Iranian Government

YLE.fi March 31, 2011

A project in which a Finnish company is to provide security services in Iran is facing resistance, slowing progress. Political turmoil has kept Iran’s security and political leadership on their toes. The Finnish project is historic, because western security companies have not previously worked in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The security firm’s fixer Auvo Niiniketo says that the project has met resistance in Iran.

”The project is still alive, but Iran is going through big changes,” says Niiniketo. “We believe in the project, but local decision makers don’t quite dare to make decisions like this.”

Private security contractors are almost unknown in the country, making the Finnish project a groundbreaking concept. The politically sensitive project has been approved at a high level in the country’s security apparatus. There are, however, elements in Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s government that are opposed to the deal and have slowed down implementation.

Please read the entire article here