Times Online

It was a drinking session with a deadly ending and unknown consequences for Britain in Iraq.

Danny Fitzsimons and several of his colleagues were downing vodka in the ArmorGroup compound near Saddam’s Republican Palace into the early hours of yesterday morning.

About 4am the men began to argue, a witness told The Times, and Mr Fitzsimons brandished a Beretta pistol. His colleagues tried to overpower him; two of them were shot dead.

Mr Fitzsimons then allegedly turned towards an Iraqi colleague, shot him in the leg and ran towards the compound’s main vehicle exit. The Iraqi, though severely wounded, followed him and shouted: “Help. The foreigner has killed other foreigners.”

The Iraqi collapsed by the compound exit, outside a white-coloured guard house, breaking a window and leaving a 5ft-long bloodstain still visible on the floor yesterday afternoon. Shouting wildly, Mr Fitzsimons then ran onto a single-lane road bordered by 15ft-high concrete blast walls on both sides, past the former villa of one of Saddam’s wives, Sajdeh, and the residence of Rafi al-Isawi, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister.

At the entrance to the nearby American base, known as Camp Liberty, guards alerted military police to the sound of gunfire. United Nations security personnel were also alerted. As they closed in they exchanged fire with Mr Fitzsimons and eventually overpowered him. According to Iraqi sources, Mr Fitzsimons was persuaded to drop his weapon and surrender.

Along with the bodies of his two dead colleagues, he was taken to a police station where he is being held in a small concrete cell with air-conditioning and a single window covered in black wire mesh. A guard outside said: “He gets his human rights.”

Consular officials from the British Embassy have visited Mr Fitzsimmons, as well as a second British national, believed to be another ArmorGroup employee, who was being held there but not considered a suspect and has now been released.

Iraqi officials yesterday claimed sole responsibility for prosecuting Mr Fitzsimmons, having taken over full control of the Green Zone from the Americans in early July. A judicial official said: “The possible punishment for a crime like murder is execution.”

Mr Fitzsimons arrived in Baghdad a few days ago, but has worked as a security guard in Iraq periodically for the past five years. He is said to have “military operational experience” and worked for ArmorGroup as well as other private security companies. Most recently he took a one-year vacation. British guards with a military background can earn up to £80,000 per year in Iraq. A British Embassy spokesman said: “We’re looking into an incident … involving some Brits. As far as I know, we have two fatalities, one British and one Australian.”

An ArmorGroup spokesman said: “I can confirm the deaths of two ArmorGroup Iraq employees in the early hours of this morning in a firearms incident.” The victims were identified locally as Paul McGuigan, from Britain, and Darren Hoare, from Australia. Mr Hoare, a 37-year-old father of three, was described by one of his children as the “best dad in the world”.

The shooting will confirm the view held by many Iraqis that foreign security guards are reckless killers.

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Aug. 9 — A British private security contractor was taken into custody by Iraqi authorities in Baghdad’s Green Zone early Sunday after he fatally shot two colleagues, Iraqi officials said.

The gunman, identified as Danny Fitzsimmons, also shot an Iraqi as he attempted to flee the compound, according Iraqi officials and two other sources familiar with the incident. The Iraqi man was critically wounded, Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, a spokesman at Iraq’s Interior Ministry said.

“I can confirm the deaths of two ArmorGroup Iraq employees in the early hours of this morning in a firefight incident,” company spokesman Patrick Toyne-Sewell said in an e-mail.

He identified the slain men as Paul McGuigan, a Briton, and Darren Hoare, an Australian. Toyne-Sewell said their relatives have been notified.

“We are working closely with Iraqi authorities to investigate the circumstances of their deaths,” Toyne-Sewell said.

Khalaf said Fitzsimmosns got into a dispute with colleagues as they were drinking.

“They got into an argument and he started shooting his colleagues,” Khalaf said.

Khalaf said Fitzsimmosns is being held at an Iraqi police detention facility.

The U.S. military and the British Embassy in Baghdad said they were familiar with the report, but provided no additional information.

“We are aware of a shooting incident involving foreign nationals in Baghdad,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement. “The Iraqi police are investigating.”

The case could mark the first time a foreign security contractor faces trial in Iraq on murder charges.

The presence of foreign security contractors in Iraq is controversial because some have been accused of using unnecessary force against Iraqis.

Most foreign contractors were exempt from prosecution under Iraqi law until January 1, when a security agreement between Iraq and the United States replaced the United Nations resolution that gave them broad immunity.

Special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report.

(CNN) — Two former Blackwater employees have made statements against Blackwater Worldwide and its founder Erik Prince, accusing the security company and its former CEO of murder and other serious crimes in Iraq, according to court documents filed this week.

The sworn affidavits by an ex-Marine who joined Blackwater and another employee — listed in the documents as “John Doe No. 1″ and “John Doe No. 2″ — are part of a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Virginia against Prince on behalf of Iraqi families who say they lost loved ones at the hands of his company.

Blackwater, recently renamed Xe, issued a statement Tuesday, saying it would respond “to the anonymous unsubstantiated and offensive assertions put forward by the plaintiffs,” in a brief to be filed August 17.

The company had a security contract for operations in Iraq under the U.S. State Department until May, when the federal government declined to renew the contract. The decision did not affect other contracts Blackwater has with the State Department, a senior State department official told CNN earlier this year.

Several of the plaintiffs are connected to a September 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad in which the Iraqi government says security guards, then employed by Blackwater, fired upon and killed 17 Iraqi civilians.

The affidavits by the two witnesses, who did not want to be identified in the court documents filed Monday for fear of retaliatory “violence,” paint a menacing portrait of Prince, who recently resigned from his company.

“First, he views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. … Second, Mr. Prince is motivated by greed,” says John Doe No. 2. “He sought every opportunity to deploy men to Iraq in order to earn more money from the United States government.”

He refers to another incident when he “first arrived in Baghdad” in which he saw fellow employees pulling weapons out of a shipment of dog food — the allegation being smuggling.

John Doe No. 1 describes witnessing one incident in Baquba, where a Blackwater employee allegedly fired into a passing single-passenger vehicle without provocation. He says he’s heard of similar instances of excessive or deadly force from other Blackwater employees.

However, neither gives clear details about the incidents they describe, such as specific dates or locations.

The court documents filed Tuesday are in response to a defense motion to dismiss the suit. The suit says the affidavits were also submitted to the Justice Department, which is engaged in an ongoing investigation into the Blackwater case. No criminal charges have been filed against Prince.

“It is obvious that Plaintiffs have chosen to slander Mr. Prince rather than raise legal arguments or actual facts that will be considered by a court of law. We are happy to engage them there,” the company statement said. “We question the judgment of anyone who relies upon and [reiterates] anonymous declarations.”

Earlier this year, five former Blackwater security guards pleaded not guilty to federal charges of manslaughter and other serious crimes stemming from a September 16, 2007, shooting. Their trial is set for February 2010.

By Nathan Vardi at Forbes.com

Nearly two years after the shootings in Baghdad, security contractor Blackwater is still haunted by the ghosts of Nisur Square. Locked out of Iraq–and the five-year contract to protect U.S. diplomats that kicked in $1 billion–the Moyock, N.C. company is in a defensive crouch. In December the Justice Department charged five of its security guards with voluntary manslaughter in the killing of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians (they have pleaded not guilty); a sixth guard pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. (The company says it is not the subject of a criminal investigation for Nisur.) Blackwater’s hard-charging founder, Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and the son of a car-parts mogul, ceded day-to-day stewardship in March to a former DHL executive. The company has changed its name to the innocuous-sounding Xe (”Zee”) Services.

The company has gone back to its roots: training police officers and active-duty military at a vast camp in Moyock. Xe would like to expand that business to any region of the world that might require nation-building. It certainly has its eye on Afghanistan, where it is already training that nation’s border patrol, as well as protecting State Department personnel and conducting low-altitude air drops of arms and other supplies for the U.S. military in remote locations.

Still, its biggest threat carries a briefcase, not a gun. Xe’s future will probably be determined in the courtroom, as it tries to deal with people like Susan L. Burke. The Washington, D.C. lawyer has filed five wrongful death lawsuits representing the estates of Iraqis. “My goal is to punish this company for having continued killing people they shouldn’t be killing,” says Burke, who is seeking at least $500 million. The first case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall, and Burke expects soon to depose Prince for the first time.

She has an office in Baghdad, manned by Iraqis, to screen clients, whom she then meets in Istanbul. “I don’t go to Baghdad,” Burke says. “I am too chicken.” Sounds like she could use a good security guard.