Court: Germany Must Press US Over Yemen Drone Strikes

[TomSea]

Court: Germany Must Press US Over Yemen Drone Strikes
By The Associated Press
    March 19, 2019

BERLIN — A court in Germany ruled Tuesday that the government has partial responsibility to ensure U.S. drone strikes controlled with the help of an American base on German territory are in line with international law, but judges stopped short of ordering the ban that human rights activists had called for.

The case was brought by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights on behalf of three Yemeni plaintiffs, who allege their relatives were killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2012. A lower court had dismissed their case in 2015, concluding at the time that the government had fulfilled its legal duties and was within its rights to balance them with "foreign and defense policy interests."

The Muenster administrative court said in a statement that available evidence suggests the Ramstein U.S. air base in southern Germany plays "a central role" for the relay of flight control data used for armed drone strikes in Yemen.

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/03/19/world/europe/ap-eu-germany-us-drone-strikes.html