Blackwater defends embrace of Islamic law

Blackwater defends embrace of Islamic law

Blackwater Worldwide CEO Erik Prince, President Gary Jackson, and spokesperson Anne Tyrrell traveled from the company's compound in Moyock, N.C. yesterday to the state capital, where they met with editorial board members, editors and reporters at the Raleigh News & Observer to challenge what they consider to be unfair media treatment, the paper reports.

The visit was part of a public-relations campaign the private security contractor launched last fall after Blackwater employees guarding a State Department convoy in Baghdad were involved in the shooting deaths of 17 civilians. That incident remains under federal investigation and is also the target of a lawsuit.

Also on the agenda was Blackwater's recent request that a U.S. federal court apply Islamic Shari'a law to a lawsuit brought by the widows of three U.S. soldiers who died in a crash of one of the company's planes in Afghanistan four years ago. Blackwater subsidiary Presidential Airways of Florida initially argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed since the company was acting as a government agent and soldiers can't sue the government, but the courts rejected that argument. Now it argues the suit should be dismissed because Shari'a law -- not U.S. law -- applies.

Here's my transcript of N&O Executive Editor John Drescher questioning Prince and Tyrrell about the Shari'a request. You can follow along with the audio recording online here, where there are also other audio recordings from yesterday's discussion:

JD: I've read your motion to dismiss in the McMahon v. Presidential Airways case. My question for you is why do you want Shari'a law to apply in this case?

EP: Ah, I couldn't comment as to the details of, ah, of that motion to dismiss. I mean, it was a choice of law venue. It was actually a question raised by, uh, by the judge in one of the original hearings, so this is responding to an inquiry from the judge -- from the, uh, from the federal judge himself.

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/06/blackwater-defends-embrace-of-islamic_19.asp