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Baghdad: An official Iraqi investigation into a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards raised the number of Iraqis killed to 17 and found the gunfire was unwarranted, the government said on Sunday.
It also said the shootings amounted to a deliberate crime and recommended those involved face trial.
The Blackwater guards are accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in a main square in Baghdad on Sept. 16. They claimed they came under fire first.
The Iraqi investigative committee, which was ordered by Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, found that convoys from the North Carolina -based security company did not come under direct or indirect fire before the men shot up the intersection.
"It was not hit even by a stone," government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said in a statement.
The incident has outraged Iraqis and brought calls for an overhaul to the rules governing private contractors such as Blackwater, which provides heavily armed security for US diplomats serving in Baghdad.
The three-member Iraqi panel led by Defense Minister Abdul-Qader Al Obeidi determined that Blackwater guards sprayed western Baghdad's Nisoor Square with gunfire without provocation.
The panel raised the casualty toll to 17 Iraqis killed and 23 wounded, as opposed to the 11 deaths Iraqi officials originally reported.
Al Dabbagh said the Cabinet would weigh the Iraqi findings with those of a joint US-Iraqi commission "and subsequently adopt the legal procedures to hold this company accountable."
The Iraqi panel's recommendations also would include that the company compensate the victims.
The Iraqi panel is one of at least three investigations involving Americans. The joint US-Iraqi commission also met for the first time Sunday to review American security operations after the shooting.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also dispatched a team to Baghdad, and retired veteran diplomat Stapleton Roy is leading a diplomatic review, along with a former State Department and intelligence official, Eric Boswell. The panel, led by Patrick Kennedy, one of the most senior management experts in the US foreign service, was to present an interim report early this month.
The Sept. 16 incident was one of at least six involving deaths allegedly caused by Blackwater that authorities here have brought to the attention of the Americans.
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