Muslim lawyers group calls for Obama to be arrested over ‘five times more’ drone attacks than Bush in 8 years
The Muslim Lawyers Association in Johannesburg wants US President Barack Obama arrested and tried for war crimes when he arrives in South Africa on June 29.
The MLA has submitted a 600-plus-page request to the Office of the National Director of Public Prosecution to arrest the U.S. president, the South African daily newspaper The Times reported.
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According to the report, the MLA mainly objects to Mr. Obama’s drone program, which it says unfairly targets Muslim civilians.
“The complaint, dubbed the ‘Obama Docket’ encourages South Africa to take seriously its domestic and international obligations and to act against International War Criminals lest they consider South Africa a safe haven and travel here freely with impunity,” the MLA said in a press release
Group spokesman Yousha Tayob said Obama ordered drone strikes that killed innocent civilians. In terms of the Rome Statute, South Africa has the right to prosecute a war criminal on its territory, said Tayob.
Researchers from New York University School of Law and Stanford University Law School recently released a report entitled “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan”.
They found that in four years Obama commissioned five times more drone attacks than former president George W Bush did in his two terms in the White House . (Emphasis added, BBJ The Dispatch)
The report estimates drones have killed between 474 and 881 civilians, including 176 children.
The US Embassy in South Africa’s spokesman Jack Hillmeyer said it had “no comment”.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Bulelwa Makeke said the office had received the docket and was studying it.
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