( CNN ) -- A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday in the case of two U.S. security contractors accused of killing two Afghanistan civilians . The jury in the case against Christopher Drotleff and Justin Cannon told Judge Robert Doumar that they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict . A retrial has been scheduled for March 1 , 2011 . Drotleff and Cannon worked as security contractors for a subsidiary of Xe , the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide . Each were charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in connection with a May 2009 shooting in Kabul , Afghanistan . The 12-count , 19-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia also included weapons charges against the two men . Trey Robert Kelleter , the attorney for Drotleff , expressed disappointment with Monday 's mistrial declaration in the federal court in Norfolk , Virginia . `` We thought the evidence showed Chris had acted in self defense , '' Kelleter said . `` It is a real hardship on his family . '' Kelleter said his client remained in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday . According to Kelleter , a retrial is likely because of the deadlocked jury . Peter Carr , the spokesman for the U.S. Attorney 's office , declined to comment . Both Drotleff and Cannon were in Afghanistan working for the security company Paravant -- a subsidiary of Xe -- to help the U.S. Army train Afghan troops . Drotleff , Cannon and two other contractors , Steven McClain and Armando Hamid , were driving their interpreters on a busy Kabul street called Jalalabad Road on May 5 , 2009 , when they said a car slammed into one of their two cars . The men said they got out to help their colleagues , and the vehicle that had struck the car did a U-turn and headed back at them . The contractors said they fired at the oncoming vehicle in self-defense . The incident spotlights the issue of the role and conduct of U.S. security contractors in Afghanistan . A similar issue arose in Iraq after a September 2007 confrontation involving then-Blackwater contractors that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead . Blackwater lost its contract there after Iraq 's government refused to renew its operating license . The company then changed its name to Xe , and it continues to receive multimillion-dollar contracts in Afghanistan .
Note : Defense attorney says a retrial is likely . The jury brings mistrial ##s . Defense attorneys were accused of killing two Afghanistan civilians . They work for a subsidiary of the company formerly called Blackwater .