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Kin of Mansour’s driver sues US over drone strike
QUETTA: The brother of a man who was killed alongside the Taliban’s slain chief Mullah Akthar Mansour in an American drone strike in southwest Pakistan is pressing
QUETTA: The brother of a man who was killed alongside the Taliban’s slain chief Mullah Akthar Mansour in an American drone strike in southwest Pakistan is pressing murder and terrorism charges against US officials, police said on Sunday.
Mansour was travelling by car near the town of Ahmad Wal on May 21 when he was killed.
US officials described the car’s driver as a “second male combatant” but according to Pakistani security officials he was a chauffeur named Mohammad Azam who worked for the Al Habib rental company based out of Quetta, the region’s main city.
His brother, Mohammad Qasim, said Azam was an innocent man who was providing for his four children and had been murdered.
“US officials whose name I do not know accepted responsibility in the media for this incident, so I want justice and request legal action against those responsible for it,” Qasim said in a police report dated May 25, a copy of which was seen by AFP.
“My brother was innocent, he was very poor and he has left behind four small children. He was the lone breadwinner in the family,” he added.
“My aim is to prove the innocence of my brother as he is being portrayed as a militant, but he was just a driver,” Qasim told AFP on the telephone.
He said so far the family had not sought any compensation for Azam’s death.
Local police and administration officials on Sunday confirmed charges had been filed, but declined to comment on what steps authorities would take to pursue the case, if any.
PAKISTAN DNA TEST CONFIRMS KILLING
Meanwhile, a spokesman from Pakistan’s interior ministry on Sunday confirmed Mansour’s killing following a DNA match with one of his relatives who had come from Afghanistan to take the body.
Pakistan had not previously confirmed Mansour’s death.
“It has been confirmed that one of the men who was killed in the drone attack was Tehreeke-Taliban Afghanistan former chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour,” the spokesman said in a statement.
“The identification was confirmed after a DNA test which was matched with a close relative of Mullah Mansour who had come from Afghanistan to receive his body.”
Mansour was appointed head of the Taliban in July 2015 and was succeeded on Wednesday by his deputy Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.
