Libyan victims of 2018 US drone strike file criminal complaint against Italian commander

The families of the victims of a US drone attack that claimed almost a dozen lives in Libya back in 2018 have filed a criminal complaint against the commander of the Italian naval station for his role in carrying out the deadly strike.

The drone strike killed 11 members of the ethnic Tuareg community on November 29, 2018 with the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) claiming that the precision air raid had killed members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

The Tuareg community, with the help of three human rights groups, filed the criminal complaint last Friday and accused the Italian commander of Naval Air Station Sigonella of unlawful use of force under both international and Italian domestic law.

The complaint called on the public prosecutor's office in Siracusa, Sicily, to prosecute the commander at the US air base on the Italian island and other Italian officials involved in the attack.

"The eleven victims were not members of al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization and were not combatants," reads the complaint, filed by Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo, Reprieve, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

"These murders, committed outside of any armed conflict and therefore qualifying as an extraterritorial law enforcement operation, are in direct contrast with Italian and international regulations on the use of lethal force."

According to the families in the complaint, the entire 11 people killed in the strike were members of the Libyan armed forces of the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) who had fought terrorists across the oil-rich country.

"AFRICOM killed innocent people. They claimed that our sons were terrorists and ended their lives without any evidence. We want the Italian government to listen to us and to stop Africom from killing our people," said Madogaz Musa Abdullah, one of the complainants who had lost his brother in the attack.

"We call on both governments to apologize and for the Italian government to open a transparent investigation and to hold to account those responsible for authorizing the strike."

Since 2014, Italian authorities have permitted the US to launch strikes on Libya from the Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. The strikes, however, must first be approved by the Italian commander, who has a duty to oversee all significant US activities, including drone strikes.

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Jennifer Gibson, who leads Reprieve's work on lethal force, said the families wanted answers for the deadly attack that was carried out "without warning by a US drone launched from Italian soil."

"Fathers, sons and brothers have been ripped from this community in an instant, leaving nothing but enduring grief and unresolved questions. The families they left behind desperately need answers – and for someone to be held accountable for this senseless loss of life," Gibson stressed.

The allegations of civilian killings in the 2018 drone attack in Libya were noted by the Pentagon at the time but the department concluded in its annual report a year later that the allegations were "not credible.”

Libya has been beset by violence and chaos since the overthrow and killing of its long-serving ruler Muammar Gaddafi following a bombing campaign by the US-led NATO military alliance in 2011.

The resulting chaos and factional divisions then escalated into a regional proxy war fueled by foreign powers, who poured weapons and mercenaries into the country.

The war-torn North African country is set for a historic democratic transition, with the UN pushing for elections and asking members from the parliament and another legislative body, the High State Council, to meet and agree a legal and constitutional basis for a vote.

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