No Afghan trip for 2 ex-Blackwater defendants

NORFOLK

A federal judge said Friday he will allow a videotaped deposition of an Afghan doctor in the murder case against two former Blackwater security guards. Siding with the government, he ruled against sending the defendants to Afghanistan for the testimony.

The former Blackwater workers, Christopher Drotleff of Virginia Beach and Justin Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, are charged with killing two Afghan citizens and wounding a third after a traffic accident in Kabul in May 2009.

The government contends the two left an Army base without permission and had been drinking that day. Drotleff and Cannon say they fired in self-defense when the Afghans charged at them in a vehicle.

The government intended to fly in Dr. Mohammad Hassan Sahibi, who operated on one of the victims, but he has refused to come here.

The defendants insisted that they be present, face-to-face, for the deposition of the doctor. U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar considered sending the defendants and their lawyers to Afghanistan for the testimony, but on Friday he ruled that would be unnecessary.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury argued that sending the defendants to Kabul would be logistically difficult and unsafe. It would also be highly unlikely, he said, that the U.S. government would grant the defendants the needed security clearance.

No date for the deposition was made. The doctor's

videotaped testimony may be played for the jury at the defendants' trial, scheduled to start Sept. 14.

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com