The Islamabad High Court on Thursday ordered registration of an FIR against Jonathan Banks, former station chief Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), over deaths of civilians in US drones attacks. A single -member bench of Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui heard a petition filed by anti-drone activist Haji Abdul Karim Khan, a tribesman of Mirali, North Waziristan. Khan held former CIA station chief Jonathan Banks responsible for the killing of his 18-year-old son Zaheenullah and brother Asif Iqbal in a drone attack in Waziristan in December 2009.
During the course of proceedings, Mirza Shahzad Akbar, the counsel for Karim Khan, pleaded that his client's son and brother were killed in a drone attack in N. Waziristan in December 2009. He argued that drone strikes killed innocent civilians, adding that the strikes took place on the command of the ex-CIA station chief. The court while accepting Karim's petition ordered the Secretariat police station house officer (SHO) Abdur Rehman to register an FIR against Jonathan Banks.
The SHO pleaded that he wanted to submit a report to assist the court on the matter; to which Justice Siddiqui said the court did not seek a report from police. The court ordered the SHO to register an FIR against the accused. The court disposed of the petition on the assurance of SHO to register an FIR. Karim Khan filed an application in the IHC in 2010, seeking registration of an FIR with the Secretariat police station in Islamabad.
Khan had nominated Banks in his application to the Secretariat Police Station in 2010 but police decided not to register the case after taking advice from their prosecution department which held that the application was not maintainable. Police had stated that the site of the drone strike does not fall in their jurisdiction. In his application, Khan had maintained that Banks paid for information to his local agents in the area to guide drone strikes. However, he added that the information that he received often proved wrong and misleading, resulting in deaths of innocent people.
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