A German court is to hear a case against the government brought by relatives of victims of a US drone attack in Yemen in a groundbreaking action that has the potential to interrupt the American strikes.



The case of three Yemenis whose relatives were killed in the attack in August 2012, will be heard on Wednesday by a court in Cologne. Lawyers for the victims say the German government shares responsibility for the death of civilians because the US military base of Ramstein, which allegedly played a key role in the attack, is on German soil. The government rejects the claim.

Faisal bin Ali Jaber, who lost his brother-in-law Salim, a preacher, and his nephew Waleed, a police officer, in the strike on the village of Khashamir on 29 August, 2012, is calling on Germany to accept legal and political responsibility for the US drone war in Yemen and to ban the use of Ramstein for such operations. In an interview with the Guardian in 2013 when he visited Washington to talk to White House officials, he pleaded for recognition of the deaths.

Ramstein, in the German state of Rheinland Pfalz, is used by the US military on condition nothing is done there that violates German law. The German government has been repeatedly accused of failing to confront Washington over Ramstein’s alleged role in the drone war.

A US MQ-1 Predator unmanned aircraft in flight at an undisclosed location. Photograph: EPA

The case rests on the claim that Ramstein is central to the drone strikes because it relays crucial information via satellite that enables drone operators in Nevada to communicate with the aircraft in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The geographical location of Ramstein is said to be vital to the transmission of the information, because, due to the curvature of the earth, a relay station is needed between the US and the Middle East.

Der Spiegel and the Intercept website reported in April that Ramstein is critical to the US drone strikes, quoting experts, but the US government has so far failed to confirm or deny the claim.

The potential loss of Ramstein as a strategically located relay station would present the US with the tough challenge of finding an alternative country willing to offer it a hub, amid global controversy and growing unease over drone strikes.

In a video statement issued via the London-based international human rights organisation Reprieve, which has worked together with lawyers from the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights to bring the case, Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a 56-year old civil engineer, said he hoped the German government would recognise its role in the attacks.

“Ramstein airbase on German soil … provided information and other logistical support to the aviation operations and therefore it is complicit in one way or another,” he said.

“Complicity in such operations contradicts all the allegations that (Germany) upholds the principles of human rights. I’d expect from the German government, and I’d humbly ask, that it stops its cooperation with the US government regarding these strikes,” he added.

Bin Ali Jaber, whose extended family had travelled back to the eastern Yemeni village to celebrate a wedding, had been having supper when he felt the impact of five rockets hitting the ground. Speaking in Arabic through a translator, he recalled leaving his house with his wife. “We found scattered body parts and people picking them up. We picked them up as well. It (soon) became apparent that Salim and Walid were among the victims. The incident was a tragedy in every way, for all the residents of Khashamir and the surrounding villages.”

He said his brother-in-law had been a respected imam who had preached openly against al-Qaida.

Kat Craig, the legal director of Reprieve, said: “We hope that German justice will be robustly administered and will prevail and this will be a significant step towards the end of civilian casualties and the suffering of Yemenis as a result of the US’s illegal drone programme, in which Ramstein appears to play a pivotal role.

“In the interim we absolutely hope that this will bring to people’s attention the plethora of problems that the drone programme presents. We need to dispel the myth that drones are surgically precise and are a miracle cure to a complex problem particularly when the people dying are precisely those we should be working with to end extremism.”

Cologne’s administrative court will rule whether the case can be heard at trial.