Tripoli, 2 June:
NATO is being sued for €100,000 by a Libyan citizen who holds the organisation responsible for the death of . . .[restrict]five of his relatives.
Ali Jfarah, a resident of Bani Walid, claims that his brother, sister and three of his brother’s children were killed in a NATO airstrike on their home in the town on 29 August 2011.
Jfarah is being represented by Belgian lawyer Ghislain Dubois. Dubois made the demand via a letter directed to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of NATO. In the letter Dubois wrote “the raid was investigated by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and they concluded that an error was made by the Atlantic Alliance, during which civilian populations were exclusively attacked”.
Dubois requested that NATO pay Jfarah “compensation of no less than €100,000, given the number of innocent victims killed.” Dubois has threatened to take the matter to court if NATO fails to respond within eight days of his request.
Dubois said that the case is scheduled for consideration on 17 September 2012. NATO has maintained that all targets hit in Libya were “legitimate military targets” and has accused the Qaddafi regime of using civilian-built infrastructure for military operations.
This is not the first time that Dubois has brought a case against NATO on behalf a Libyan client. Last year, he also made a formal complaint on behalf of Khalid Hamidi. Hamidi accused NATO of killing his wife and three children on 20 June 2011 in the city of Sorman, 70 kilometres west of Tripoli. A Moroccan citizen confirmed that his daughter was also killed in same raid and thus listed under the same case.
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