A lawyer representing former Blackwater employees who accuse company founder Erik Prince of defrauding the government will head to Abu Dhabi this weekend to depose the head of the controversial contractor.
Susan Burke, who has already settled seven suits against Prince in relation to the shooting of Iraqi citizens in 2007, will depose Prince in the United Arab Emirates, writes her husband Jamison Koehler.
As reported by the the New York Times earlier this week, court documents indicated that Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates, and current and former colleagues said Prince wanted to focus on security work for African and the Middle Eastern governments. Prince, they told the Times, was bitter about both the legal scrutiny and negative publicity his company received.
Blackwater, or Xe Services as it is now known, is for sale, and former top managers at the company are facing criminal charges, as announced by federal prosecutors in April.
Writes Koehler:
Prince sought to avoid giving a deposition in this case by claiming that he needed to be in Abu Dhabi in time for his children to begin school there on August 15. It is unclear what English-speaking school in the country begins any time before September. But, calling his bluff, Susan offered to travel herself to Abu Dhabi to take the deposition there, and the judge granted the order. As the old expression goes, if you can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, you bring the mountain to Mohammed.
