Drone victim in Pakistan demands compensation from US

ISLAMABAD - A resident of North Waziristan, affected by US drone attacks in Pakistans tribal region, has sent a legal notice to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and CIA chief Leon Panetta for Rs. 500 million in compensation for the deaths of two of his family members.

Addressing a press conference here Monday afternoon, complainant Karim Khan said a drone attack on his house on December 31 last year had killed his son and brother.

These attacks are being carried out without concrete information (about the presence of militants), he alleged.

Only a handful of terrorists have been killed in these attacks since 2004 while the number of civilian casualties is much higher, he stated.

The station chief of the CIA in Islamabad, Jonathan Banks, is dishing out money to the natives of Waziristan to spy for the US, he charged.

Mirza Shahzad Akbar, the complainant’s lawyer, demanded that the name of the CIA station chief be included in the Exit Control List because he did not have diplomatic immunity.

The International Court of Justice could also be moved to seek relief against the accused, he said.

Pilotless US drone attacks in Pakistans tribal areas started in 2004 and over 200 such strikes have killed more than 1,700 people, many of them civilians, since then.

The frequency of such attacks, targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, has increased in recent months, in which several high profile suspected militants have been killed.