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WASHINGTON (AP/MSNBC) — Federal prosecutors are considering filing weapons charges against former top officials of the Blackwater Worldwide private security company over allegations they illegally stockpiled automatic rifles at the company’s North Carolina headquarters.
Senior Justice Department officials are reviewing a draft indictment against former president Gary Jackson, former Blackwater lawyer Andrew Howell, and a third man who used to work at the firm’s armoury. A decision is not expected until at least next month.
The potential charges stem from a raid conducted by federal agents in 2008 that seized 22 weapons, among them 17 AK-47s. Multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the case said investigators are trying to determine if Blackwater obtained the official letterhead of a local sheriff to create a false justification for buying the guns.
Federal law prohibits private parties from buying fully automatic weapons registered after 1986, but does let law enforcement agencies have them.
Xe spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has “fully co-operated with this investigation and we will have no further comment.”
In a 2008 interview with the AP, Jackson and other Blackwater executives said the company provided the local Camden County sheriff’s office a place to store weapons, calling the gesture a “professional courtesy.”
“We gave them a big safe so that they can store their own guns,” Jackson said at the time.
KABUL (Mother Jones) – Unauthorized weapons stockpiles, reckless shootings, steroid-injecting personnel–tales from the security firm’s latest Afghanistan outrage.
Paravant, which, in the fall of 2008 inked a subcontract with Raytheon to train Afghan National Army troops. The work, worth about $20 million over two years, was carried out under a 10-year, $11.2 billion contract known as Warfighter FOCUS. Paravant, one of numerous subsidiaries incorporated by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, was created solely for the purposes of this subcontract. According to Brian McCracken, a former Paravant vice president who now works for Raytheon, Blackwater and Paravant were “one and the same.”
U.S. Training Center - Xe Services - in Moyock, N.C.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."