Judge: Intelligence Forces Must Produce Missing Anti-Drone Activist

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/12-2



Kareem Khan, shown here holding pictures of his son and brother who were killed in a suspected US drone attack, has not been seen since being kidnapped last week from his home in Pakistan.

Judge: Intelligence Forces Must Produce Missing Anti-Drone Activist
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Published on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 by Common Dreams

A Pakistani judge on Wednesday ordered the country's intelligence forces to produce prominent anti-drone campaigner Kareem Khan, who was abducted from his home in Rawalpindi one week ago and has been missing since.

Shahzad Akbar, who is Khan's lawyer and a fellow for the UK-based charity Reprieve, argued to the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday that intelligence services were likely responsible for Khan's kidnapping. In response, the presiding judge ordered Pakistan's intelligence services, overseen by the Ministry of the Interior, to produce Khan by February 20th, according to a statement by Reprieve.

“Kareem Khan has already lost a brother and son to U.S. drone strikes," said Akbar. "Now, he too has disappeared. All because he had the courage to speak out about what happened to him and about the terrible civilian toll such strikes are having."

Khan's 35-year-old brother, Asif Iqbal, and 18-year-old son, Zaneullah Khan — both of them civilians — died when a 2009 CIA drone strike destroyed Khan's home in North Waziristan. Khan stated in a previous interview with CNN, "When my house was attacked, it flashed on the news that militants have been killed. There were no militants in my house, neither on the day of drone strike nor before. My house wasn't a training center, either. Only innocent people where killed."