Yemen drone attack victims sue Germany for deaths

[Irbis]

German court to hear case brought by relatives of Yemen drone attack victims

German government shares responsibility for deaths by allowing US to relay drone data via Ramstein airbase, relatives will tell Cologne administrative court

A German court is to hear a case against the government brought by relatives of victims of a US drone attack in Yemen in a groundbreaking action that has the potential to interrupt the American strikes.

The case of three Yemenis whose relatives were killed in the attack in August 2012, will be heard on Wednesday by a court in Cologne. Lawyers for the victims say the German government shares responsibility for the death of civilians because the US military base of Ramstein, which allegedly played a key role in the attack, is on German soil. The government rejects the claim.

Faisal bin Ali Jaber, who lost his brother-in-law Salim, a preacher, and his nephew Waleed, a police officer, in the strike on the village of Khashamir on 29 August, 2012, is calling on Germany to accept legal and political responsibility for the US drone war in Yemen and to ban the use of Ramstein for such operations. In an interview with the Guardian in 2013 when he visited Washington to talk to White House officials, he pleaded for recognition of the deaths.

Ramstein, in the German state of Rheinland Pfalz, is used by the US military on condition nothing is done there that violates German law. The German government has been repeatedly accused of failing to confront Washington over Ramstein’s alleged role in the drone war.

The case rests on the claim that Ramstein is central to the drone strikes because it relays crucial information via satellite that enables drone operators in Nevada to communicate with the aircraft in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The geographical location of Ramstein is said to be vital to the transmission of the information, because, due to the curvature of the earth, a relay station is needed between the US and the Middle East.

Der Spiegel and the Intercept website reported in April that Ramstein is critical to the US drone strikes, quoting experts, but the US government has so far failed to confirm or deny the claim.

The potential loss of Ramstein as a strategically located relay station would present the US with the tough challenge of finding an alternative country willing to offer it a hub, amid global controversy and growing unease over drone strikes.

In a video statement issued via the London-based international human rights organisation Reprieve, which has worked together with lawyers from the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights to bring the case, Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a 56-year old civil engineer, said he hoped the German government would recognise its role in the attacks.

“Ramstein airbase on German soil … provided information and other logistical support to the aviation operations and therefore it is complicit in one way or another,” he said.

“Complicity in such operations contradicts all the allegations that (Germany) upholds the principles of human rights. I’d expect from the German government, and I’d humbly ask, that it stops its cooperation with the US government regarding these strikes,” he added.
US drone strikes listed and detailed in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen
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Bin Ali Jaber, whose extended family had travelled back to the eastern Yemeni village to celebrate a wedding, had been having supper when he felt the impact of five rockets hitting the ground. Speaking in Arabic through a translator, he recalled leaving his house with his wife. “We found scattered body parts and people picking them up. We picked them up as well. It (soon) became apparent that Salim and Walid were among the victims. The incident was a tragedy in every way, for all the residents of Khashamir and the surrounding villages.”

He said his brother-in-law had been a respected imam who had preached openly against al-Qaida.

Kat Craig, the legal director of Reprieve, said: “We hope that German justice will be robustly administered and will prevail and this will be a significant step towards the end of civilian casualties and the suffering of Yemenis as a result of the US’s illegal drone programme, in which Ramstein appears to play a pivotal role.

“In the interim we absolutely hope that this will bring to people’s attention the plethora of problems that the drone programme presents. We need to dispel the myth that drones are surgically precise and are a miracle cure to a complex problem particularly when the people dying are precisely those we should be working with to end extremism.”

[Simon_Jester]

I wish they had a better chance of getting redress from the US government, as this undeclared war in Yemen has become ridiculous and stinking, whether it is done with the consent of the Yemeni government or not.

[Borgholio]

I wish they had a better chance of getting redress from the US government, as this undeclared war in Yemen has become ridiculous and stinking, whether it is done with the consent of the Yemeni government or not.

Not that I'd be against the idea entirely, but it would open up the floodgates of every nation that was ever wronged by us (or any other nation for that matter). I mean just off the top of my head, Yemen, Iraq, Lybia, Afghanistan...any nation we screwed up with a botched / illegal invasion or bombed with drones could potentially sue us. Again, maybe we need that in order to learn to stop taking the heavy-handed approach to things...but it would get quite ugly.

[Joun_Lord]

It sucks they have to sue another country to try to get something for the death of their loved ones. Loved ones killed in a country that we aren't at war with. Whether or not the people we are even droning are bad people or not (I'd assume most are but there are plenty that are hit accidentally or as collateral damage, a bit more later) we shouldn't be fighting undeclared wars in multiple countrys Global War of Terror be damned.

Now that said I have nothing against drone usage in general. Its certainly not "surgical" as in can kill a dude in a crowd without hurting anyone else or anything such as that but it is nonetheless considerably more precise and less damaging then earlier methods of bombing. Now that doesn't really give much comfort to the people we fudge up and bomb without them being a target but its still considerably better then if we hit them with a fighter JDAM airstrike or carpet bombing from a B-52.

But any tool of warfare no matter how precise is only as good as the operators operating it. Even a precision satellite laser capable of killing a single dude in a crowd will cause collateral damage if used improperly or on shitty intelligence. Using drones against targets that aren't confirmed to be actual legal targets, weddings, funerals, any dude over 10 carrying an AK or something that looks like an AK or RPG, and any gathering kills scores of people that didn't have to die.

America really fucking needs to have better guidelines on drone usage.

[Purple]

Not that I'd be against the idea entirely, but it would open up the floodgates of every nation that was ever wronged by us (or any other nation for that matter). I mean just off the top of my head, Yemen, Iraq, Lybia, Afghanistan...any nation we screwed up with a botched / illegal invasion or bombed with drones could potentially sue us.

I fail to see how that is a bad thing.

[Simon_Jester]

I wish they had a better chance of getting redress from the US government, as this undeclared war in Yemen has become ridiculous and stinking, whether it is done with the consent of the Yemeni government or not.

Not that I'd be against the idea entirely, but it would open up the floodgates of every nation that was ever wronged by us (or any other nation for that matter). I mean just off the top of my head, Yemen, Iraq, Lybia, Afghanistan...any nation we screwed up with a botched / illegal invasion or bombed with drones could potentially sue us. Again, maybe we need that in order to learn to stop taking the heavy-handed approach to things...but it would get quite ugly.

Normally, states are not liable for damage caused to private citizens' property during wartime, unless reparations are paid out in the peace settlement afterward- and that is between countries, not from a country to an individual.

Thing is, this "war on terror" violates all the basic definitions of normal warfare. The customs of war are tuned to the idea of a war that has fixed boundaries in time and space- it's over when one side loses, and it happens within a well defined territory. The "war on terror" has no boundaries in space or time; there is no place you can go to be safe from US drone strikes. Moreover, the US is if anything being even less respectful of international boundaries than the terrorists are, these days.

So at some point, the US cannot reasonably claim "the damage we do to private parties is part of an act of war," while NOT having to follow any of the other laws and customs of war like "define what a noncombatant is and do not willfully attack them," or "define the territorial limits of the conflict" or "observe basic principles of national sovereignty."

[FTeik]

I wish they had a better chance of getting redress from the US government, as this undeclared war in Yemen has become ridiculous and stinking, whether it is done with the consent of the Yemeni government or not.

Not that I'd be against the idea entirely, but it would open up the floodgates of every nation that was ever wronged by us (or any other nation for that matter). I mean just off the top of my head, Yemen, Iraq, Lybia, Afghanistan...any nation we screwed up with a botched / illegal invasion or bombed with drones could potentially sue us. Again, maybe we need that in order to learn to stop taking the heavy-handed approach to things...but it would get quite ugly.

More ugly than it already is?

[Borgholio]

I fail to see how that is a bad thing.

It's not. I feel we should have to face consequences of our actions so we can be smarter about the whole thing in the future. But like hell that's happening.

So at some point, the US cannot reasonably claim "the damage we do to private parties is part of an act of war," while NOT having to follow any of the other laws and customs of war like "define what a noncombatant is and do not willfully attack them," or "define the territorial limits of the conflict" or "observe basic principles of national sovereignty."

We're probably well past that point, since bombing weddings is old news. The question is, what's the best way to start getting us to back off? It's not likely the UN is going to do anything, and would it even be possible to sue the US over wrongful deaths (for lack of a better term)? Would it be in an international or US Federal court? I have no idea how that would work...

More ugly than it already is?

Yeah, adding legal battles on top of everything will only make it uglier...especially if the US has no intention of stopping the drone strikes despite being sued.

[Thanas]

The suit was dismissed today, due to there being no duty for the German government to regulate US business on a US base in what is legally US territory.
Source in German

[Irbis]

The suit was dismissed today, due to there being no duty for the German government to regulate US business on a US base in what is legally US territory.

Funny that, remember what happened last time someone didn't regulate US business on a US base? Hopefully that excuse will soon join the "I was just following orders" one.

Anyway, from what I saw on Polish media, the Yemenis plan an appeal to higher instance. Along with pointing out numerous reports surfacing recently, like this Zeit one, indicate BND fed data on targets to USA and helped with strikes selecting targets, making Gemany much more responsible that by just hosting base. Long article but relevant bits in quote:

Mass Surveillance: BND stores 220 million telephone data – every day

ZEIT ONLINE has learned that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency collects huge amounts of metadata and passes it on to the NSA. The Americans use such data to kill. von Kai Biermann

Metadata help America’s intelligence agencies kill. And the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, is helping the NSA and CIA collect precisely these kinds of metadata. Not in a targeted manner, but on a massive scale. The BND scoops up several million metadata and passes them on to its American counterparts. More precisely: 220 million metadata every day.

A paradigm change is taking place at the BND: Rather than investigating individual suspects, the agency is placing its bets on mass surveillance. Research conducted by ZEIT ONLINE now shows for the first time just how extensive – and troubling – this reorganization is.

[...]

ZEIT ONLINE has learned from secret BND documents that five agency locations are involved in gathering huge amounts of metadata. Metadata vacuumed up across the world – 220 million pieces of it every single day – flows into BND branch offices in the German towns of Schöningen, Reinhausen, Bad Aibling and Gablingen. There, they are stored for between a week and six months and sorted according to still-unknown criteria. But the data aren’t just collected; they are also used to keep tabs on and track of suspects.

Exactly where the BND obtains the data remains unclear. The Bundestag committee investigating the NSA spying scandal has uncovered that the German intelligence agency intercepts communications traveling via both satellites and Internet cables. The 220 million metadata are only one part of what is amassed from these eavesdropping activities. It is certain that the metadata only come from "foreign dialed traffic," in other words, from telephone conversations and text messages that are held and sent via mobile telephony and satellites.

[...]

The German government’s former commissioner for data protection and freedom of information believes that metadata should also be protected by the basic right of privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications guaranteed by Article 10 of Germany’s Basic Law.

But even if metadata aren’t protected by the constitution, the BND must secure the approval of the Chancellery to have a long-term database that is an "automated data file" according to the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), meaning a file that "can be evaluated ... by means of automated procedures." Moreover, the federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information must also be informed about any automated data file that officials plan to store in their databases for more than six months.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been possible to ascertain whether the latter requirement was met. In response to inquiries, the commissioner’s office said that procedures for approving analysis of secret files are also secret. The office couldn’t comment on that matter, nor could it either confirm or deny the existence of such an order. Accordingly, one can only hope that the data collection was properly approved. But there is only a glimmer of hope, as the BND has already operated other databases, sometimes for years, without obtaining the legally required approval of oversight authorities.

[...]

In June and July of that year, members of the federal government, including Chancellery Chief of Staff Ronald Pofalla, made repeated assurances that the NSA and the BND were abiding by German laws.

However, at that time, the only issues being discussed were content data, that is, recorded calls and the content of faxes and emails. It wasn’t about metadata yet at all. It was only in mid-August 2013 that Hans-Christian Ströbele, a Bundestag member with the Green Party, first hinted that there could be a second level of surveillance. After a meeting of the Parliamentary Control Panel (PKGr), the Bundestag committee responsible for scrutinizing the work of the intelligence services, he said that he had learned that the BND was storing "hundreds of millions of pieces of information from communication links" from reconnaissance abroad and then passing this information on to the United States. However, even Ströbele apparently didn’t recognize the scale of the problem at that time.

[...]

At present, the Bundestag’s NSA committee is facing a similar situation. For example, in November 2014, the head of a BND subdivision identified only as W.K. named a figured before the committee for the first time: 500 million. That, he said, was the number of metadata that the BND passes on to the NSA – every month. The huge amount, he continued, can be explained by the fact that a single telephone conversation already entails dozens of metadata.

His aim was to convey that it really wasn’t all that much. In fact, however, hidden behind these 500 million metadata of Mr. K. is already the equivalent of several million telephone calls or text messages. And that is most likely just a fraction of what is actually forwarded to the NSA. The reason for this is that the monthly figure of 500 million only relates to the satellite interception program in Bad Aibling that goes under the codename "Eikonal." Meanwhile, there are still the rest of the 220 million metadata collected each day by the other eavesdropping programs, and just how many of these are being sent to the United States has yet to be disclosed. W.K. didn’t say a single word about that.

So, BND fed hundreds of millions of calls, mails and text messages to NSA without any sort of supervision, lying to parliament about the scale, scope and reach of their programs, handing everything the agency known for doing the strikes wanted on silver platter, breaking numerous articles of German constitution. And that's still possibly only a fraction what they have been doing. I wonder if pointing that out will change the outcome of an appeal. Probably not, it's not like vassals will ever attempt to make any sort of inconvenience for their overlord.

I am just curious, if these sites were built to spy on East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia for that Americans, who exactly they are spying on now? So called Germany's best friends?

[Thanas]

Funny that, remember what happened last time someone didn't regulate US business on a US base? Hopefully that excuse will soon join the "I was just following orders" one.

How is a German court supposed to get jurisdiction over US territory?

I am just curious, if these sites were built to spy on East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia for that Americans, who exactly they are spying on now? So called Germany's best friends?

Germans.