Drone strikes are illegal according to a prominent Pakistani lawyer
In the Bureau’s latest podcast we speak to Pakistani lawyer Ahmer Bilal Soofi. He tells the Bureau drone strike victims should be able to seek compensation from ‘the US government within the US’.
He added the strikes are a violation of Pakistani sovereignty and a violation of international law ‘by virtue of the constitution and also by virtue of the UN Charter.’ Soofi was speaking to the Bureau’s Owen Bennett-Jones in Islamabad.
Also this week, Alice Ross discusses the announcement that the US will investigate a drone strike, which took place in Yemen late last year. US military drones killed up to 15 civilians in a botched attack on December 12. The drones destroyed vehicles heading to a wedding.
This is the first time the administration has said it will investigate an operation that took place outside the declared battlefield of Afghanistan.
Ross also reports on the first civilian casualty of 2014 from a strike in Yemen. And discusses new reports that a named German was killed in a CIA drone strike in Pakistan in February 2012.
