ISLAMOPHOBIA--THE TRUMP BRAND:

Ali Kinani's life was cut short at nine years old in 2007, when Blackwater American security contractors opened fire without provocation in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 people.

Ali, who liked to be called Alawi, was in the back of his father's car on the way home after picking up his aunt and cousins, on what had appeared like a normal day until the shooting started in all directions.

Determined to bring the killers to justice, Ali's father Mohammed Kinani moved to the United States to follow the prosecution of the Blackwater employees.

It took a decade of legal proceedings, trials, appeals, dropped charges and re-trials for four of the perpetrators to be convicted, with Nick Slatten - the main culprit - receiving a life sentence for first-degree murder.

On Tuesday, outgoing US President Donald Trump pardoned all four convicts.

"No one is above the law is what we learned in America, but now there's someone above the law," Kinani told Middle East Eye, as he struggled for words upon learning of the pardon.

"I don't know how this is allowed. I don't think that America is built on such principles."

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