Blackwater protesters sentenced after judge clears courtroom

CURRITUCK, N.C.

In a courtroom closed to the press and public, protesters were sentenced to jail Wednesday for re-enacting a Baghdad shooting incident at the front entrance of Blackwater .

They said they will appeal the verdicts, partly on the grounds that they were denied their constitutional right to a public trial.

Currituck County District Judge Edgar Barnes took the rare step of clearing the courtroom after trying one of the protesters, Steve Baggarly of Norfolk, in public. The remaining six were then tried, convicted and sentenced behind closed doors.

The judge gave no reason for his action.

The seven received jail terms ranging from 10 to 45 days and were fined $100 each. They said they will not pay the fines. One was ordered to pay $450 restitution to Blackwater for damage to its property.

All were released pending their appeals.

After the trials, Baggarly speculated that the judge closed the courtroom to silence the group’s anti-war rhetoric.

“He didn’t want people influenced by our message,” Baggarly said. “There have been hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq. If we’re going to speak about that, nobody is allowed to hear it. Obviously the system feels threatened by that. It loves darkness.”

Katy Parker, legal director of the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she had never before heard of a similar action being taken by a North Carolina judge.

“It’s a clear violation of constitutional rights, not only of the defendants but the press and public,” she said. “They have a right to a public trial, so any trial that goes on behind closed doors is a farce.”

In the Oct. 20 demonstration at Blackwater’s Moyock headquarters, the protesters drove a small station wagon, covered with simulated bullet holes and smeared with red paint, onto Blackwater’s property.

They also smeared red handprints on two Blackwater signs.

The scene was intended to mimic that in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, when an Iraqi doctor and her son died in a fusillade of gunfire as their car approached a Blackwater diplomatic convoy.

They were among 17 Iraqis killed in the incident, which prompted a federal grand jury investigation and a demand from the Iraqi government that Blackwater’s security contractors be banned from the country.

The seven protesters were convicted of second-degree trespassing. Six were also convicted of resisting arrest, and one of injury to real property. Several went limp when they were arrested and had to be dragged from the scene.

During Baggarly’s trial, he was repeatedly cut short by the judge when he tried to discuss the morality of the Iraq war and Blackwater’s role in it. The only issue up for discussion was trespassing and the related charges, the judge said.

“We feel like Blackwater is trespassing in Iraq,” Baggarly told the judge. “And as for injuring property, they injure men, women and children every day.”

The others convicted were Beth Brockman of Durham, N.C.; Mark Colville of New Haven, Conn.; Peter DeMott of Ithaca, N.Y.; Mary Grace of Madison County, Va.; Laura Marks of Ayden, N.C.; and Bill Streit of Louisa County, Va.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276,

bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com