As if…
CIA chiefs face arrest over drone attacks: report - thenews.com.pk
A British newspaper has revealed shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan, The Mail on Sunday reported.
A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes. Shahzad Akbar, a human rights lawyer who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve, assembled the dossier.
Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes.
They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Akbar and his staff have already gathered furthertestimony, which has yet to be filed. “We have statements from a further 82 victims’ families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,” he said. “This is their only hope of justice.”
In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Akbar’s petition, an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the two Americans.
The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Akbar and the families of drone victims, who are civilians, are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as “acts of war”. They argue that means the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible.
According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004. The report said of those, up to 881 were civilians, including 176 children. Only 41 people who had died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.
Getting at the truth is difficult because the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists. US security officials continue to claim that almost all those killed are militants who use bases in Pakistan to launch attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.
