Five Blackwater security guards were charged on Monday with killing fourteen unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding twenty others in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad. The federal prosecutors accused the Blackwater guards of opening machine gun fire on innocent Iraqis and launching a grenade into a girls’ school. The five guards have been charged with fourteen counts of manslaughter and twenty counts of attempted manslaughter. They are also charged with using a machine gun to commit a crime of violence, a charge that carries a thirty-year minimum prison sentence.

Assistant Attorney General Pat Rowan: “The government alleges today that at least thirty-four unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed or injured without justification or provocation by these security guards in the shooting at Nisoor Square. Today’s indictment and guilty plea should serve as a reminder that those who engaged in unprovoked and illegal attacks on civilians, whether during times of conflict or times of peace, will be held accountable.”