Somalis Sue Netherlands for Assisting US Drone Strike That Killed Civilians

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Two Somali nomads have taken the Netherlands to court for sharing intelligence with the United States that led to a US airstrike which killed their daughters and left one of the men crippled, a Dutch newspaper said Saturday.

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The airstrike targeted an al-Shabaab militant leader travelling with a convoy in southern Somalia in January 2014. No civilian casualties were reported by US or other Western media, the Volkskrant newspaper said.

The Somalis, who also lost their livestock to the drone missile attack, told the Dutch outlet they had filed a lawsuit to a Dutch court, saying the Netherlands was co-responsible for the killing of their loved ones.

According to Volkskrant, this is the first time that a case on collateral damage caused by a US drone strike is referred to a Dutch court.

Goran Sluiter, one of the two Dutch lawyers representing Somalis in court, was quoted by the daily as saying that there is no such thing as a "clean" targeted killing.

Leaks by US whistleblower Edward Snowden showed that the Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD had been providing the United States with intelligence it gathered by sifting through millions of phone calls and text messages by Somalis.

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