Judge: CIA Pakistan ex-station chief wanted over deadly 2009 drone strike
Islamabad wants a former CIA station chief in Pakistan to stand trial on murder charges over a 2009 strike that killed at least three people, as well as waging war inside the country.
Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, of the Islamabad High Court, ruled Tuesday that Jonathan Banks, the former CIA station chief in Islamabad, and John A. Rizzo, a CIA lawyer, should be held legally accountable for a December 2009 drone strike that reportedly killed at least three people.
The court order is unlikely to become more than a symbolic
gesture since both Banks and Rizzo quit the country back in 2010
after Karim Khan, a Pakistani journalist, pressed charges against
Banks over the aerial strike on his home in North Waziristan that
allegedly killed his brother and son, both government employees.
"We appeal to the authorities not to let Jonathan Banks
escape from Pakistan," Khan declared outside an Islamabad
police station in December 2010. "He should be arrested and
executed in this country."
Khan was also seeking $500 million in damages from the US
government.
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The legal action against Banks blew the CIA station chief’s
undercover status, forcing him and Rizzo to quit the country. To
this day it remains unclear how Khan and his lawyer Shahzad Akbar
discovered the identity of the CIA chief, although some suspect
Pakistan’s intelligence agency revealed the name as US-Pakistan
relations at the time were rapidly deteriorating.
One Pakistani newspaper suggested that Banks’ identity was released
after a US court “had summoned top officials of Pakistani spy
agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and others as the
alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks” on
behalf of the families of two American victims.
Media reports at the time suggested the target of the CIA drone
strike was Haji Omar, then the Taliban commander for North
Waziristan. Khan denied the claims.
US drone strikes have reportedly killed hundreds of innocent
people in Pakistan, sparking a public backlash and creating political tensions
between Islamabad and Washington.
Since 2004, the CIA’s Special Activities Division has relied upon
unmanned aerial drones to hit targets in northwest Pakistan along
the Afghan-Pakistan border. Initially started during the
administration of President George W. Bush, drone strikes
increased significantly under his successor, Barack Obama.
In October 2013, a UN investigation determined that US drone
strikes had killed at least 400 civilians in Pakistan – a number
far higher than Washington had reported. The drone strikes have
led to deep strains in the US-Pakistan relationship.
Shortly after the UN ruling, the Peshawar High Court said the
attacks were illegal and constituted a war crime.
In December 2013, some 5,000 demonstrators took to the streets in
Lahore to protest against ongoing US drone strikes. The event was
organized by the Defense of Pakistan Council, comprised of some
40 religious and political groups.
