Prosecutor: Ex-Blackwater duo 'out of control' before killings

NORFOLK

After a day of drinking beer, Christopher Drotleff and Justin Cannon "were a disaster waiting to happen" when they shot and killed two Afghan civilians after a traffic accident, a federal prosecutor told a jury Wednesday at the pair's murder trial.

"They were drinking. They were driving. They were armed. And they were out of control," Robert P. McGovern, a Department of Justice prosecutor, said in his opening statement.

But witnesses later gave conflicting testimony on how much Drotleff and Cannon were drinking, or even whether they were drinking at all. Some fellow contractors admitted that they lied on official statements to their superiors about the drinking.

Drotleff, 30, of Virginia Beach and Cannon, 28, of Corpus Christi, Texas, are charged with murder and related counts in the May 5, 2009, shooting deaths of two civilians in Kabul,

Afghanistan, and the wounding of a third.

McGovern said Drotleff and Cannon also were fueled by anger that day, following the firing of two of their superiors by Paravant, the Blackwater subsidiary that employed them. After the killings, they also tried to cover up their actions, he said.

Defense attorneys told the jury the two fired in self-defense after a car came careening at them on the wrong side of Jalalabad Road, called by one attorney "one of the most dangerous roads in the world." Contractors refer to it as J-bad Road.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Larry Dash, one of Cannon's two lawyers, emphasized to the jury the dangers in Kabul, where Americans are in constant fear of car bombs and improvised explosive devices. He reminded them of the reason U.S. troops are there - the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida terrorist group with the backing of the Taliban.

Drotleff's attorney, Lawrence H. Woodward Jr., told the jury there will be no evidence that his client was in a drunken rage when he shot the Afghans. Drotleff, he said, "was in legitimate fear for his safety" and the safety of the others when he fired his weapon.

During the day, two very different versions of what happened on that day in 2009 emerged from opening statements and the testimony of the government's first five witnesses.

On the day of the shootings, one day after two Paravant team leaders were fired, Drotleff, Cannon and a number of other contractors joined them for beers outside their huts at Camp Alamo. Some witnesses said the party started at 11 a.m.; one said it was after lunch.

At dinnertime, they moved

to a German restaurant across the main road at a French compound called Camp Warehouse. Witnesses were conflicted as to who was drinking beer. Some said there could have been non-alcoholic beer served. But they all acknowledged they were angry about the firings.

After dinner, several contractors, including Drotleff and Cannon, went to a recreation center that had a bar. Some played pool while others talked to some French women, witnesses said. They stayed for about an hour and returned to Camp Alamo.

One witness said he saw Drotleff buy 20 beers at once at the bar, but he couldn't say whether they had drunk the beer.

Two contractors admitted that they initially lied to Paravant officials about the drinking because they didn't want to lose their jobs. They later admitted it to the FBI and, now, on the witness stand.

But no evidence emerged that Drotleff or Cannon were drunk that day, or exactly how much they might have had to drink. Most witnesses only placed one beer in Drotleff's hand at the camp, one at dinner - which he only had half of - and one at the bar.

"No one at the party was drunk?" Cannon's attorney, James Broccoletti, asked Karl Newman, one of the Paravant team leaders who had been fired.

"No, not that I know," he answered.

"Nobody was out of control?" Broccoletti followed.

"No," said Newman, who before working for Paravant had served in the Marines for 11 years, receiving three Purple Hearts.

After returning to Camp Alamo, Drotleff, Cannon and two others decided to drive three Afghan locals to a taxi stand about six miles away. The Afghans feared heading out alone without protection.

But when the contractors asked Newman whether they could go, Newman told them, "Hell, no," he said on the stand. But on cross-examination, Newman added that since he had been fired, he told them to seek permission from the guy who replaced him. That person hasn't testified yet.

The trial will continue this morning in U.S. District Court on Granby Street. Several of the Afghans involved are scheduled to testify.

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