Source: IRNA
A German-based Afghan lawyer is to file a lawsuit against the German government on behalf of the families of the victims of a devastating NATO bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan in fall 2009.
Speaking at a news conference in Berlin on Thursday on the second anniversary of the
NATO strike which killed up to 142, Karim Popal said he was to take the German
defense ministry to court for not giving proper compensation to the Afghan
victims.
Popal is seeking 33,000 US dollars in damages per victim, while the German government has so far agreed to pay only 5,000 US dollars.
We demand 'nothing but total justice,' said Popal who stressed he took up the case
free of charge.
The Afghan attorney emphasized many of the victims' families were living in utter poverty.
Popal had earlier warned that should Berlin refuse to agree to an out-of-court payment, he would sue for compensation for the 'flawed and grossly negligent' actions of German military forces.
The deadly air strike turned into a major political scandal in Germany, leading to the resignation of former German defense minister Franz Josef Jung from his post as labor minister last month over his role in an alleged cover-up of civilian casualties in the NATO air assault in Afghanistan.
Some 142 people, among them also children, were reportedly killed in the September 4 late-night air strike on two fuel tanker trucks hijacked by the Taliban in the north Afghan region of Kunduz.
A German colonel, operating under NATO's Afghan operation, had requested American fighter jets to bomb the fuel trucks while they were stuck in a river bed.
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