Having lost both his legs, one eye and three relatives in an airstrike conducted by the CIA, 17-year-old Sadaullah Wazir is intent on suing the spy agency in a Pakistan court for wrongful death. Wazir’s attorney, Shahzad Akbar, admits there is little chance that any CIA official will show up in court or pay damages if they are awarded.

 

But Akbar is at least hoping for a symbolic victory and some bad press for the CIA. Like the rest of the U.S. government, the CIA claims it has been acting in self-defense since the September 11, 2001, attacks and operating within the bounds of international law while carrying out drone attacks against insurgents in Pakistan.

 

Sadaullah says that he was sitting with male relatives in September 2009 when the drone strike hit, killing two of his cousins and an uncle and throwing him against a wall. The next day he was driven from his village, Machi Khel, to Peshawar, where Red Cross surgeons amputated his legs. It is unclear what connection, if any, the victims had to the Taliban or other insurgents.

 

Akbar already has scored one political victory by naming the CIA’s station chief in another lawsuit, forcing the American official to leave the country after his cover was blown.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Pakistani Drone Victim Seeks to Put US on Trial (by Chris Brummitt, Associated Press)

Pakistanis Protests U.S. Drone Strikes (By Jamil Bhatti, Xinhua)