September, 16 2016, 01:30pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Reprieve's London office can be contacted on: communications [at] reprieve.org.uk / +44 (0) 207 553 8140.,Reprieve US,, based in New York City, can be contacted on Katherine [dot] oshea [at] reprieve.org
Drone Killing: Cash Is No Substitute for Genuine Transparency
In response to reports that the Obama Administration has agreed to pay EUR1m to the family of an Italian aid worker who was killed in a US drone strike in 2015, Jennifer Gibson, Reprieve staff attorney, said:
"The Lo Porto family's terrible ordeal shows that the secret drone program is nothing like as accurate as the US Government claims. Yet there are many more civilian victims who have yet to receive a public apology - notably Faisal bin ali Jaber, who lost two innocent relatives to a drone strike in Yemen.
WASHINGTON
In response to reports that the Obama Administration has agreed to pay EUR1m to the family of an Italian aid worker who was killed in a US drone strike in 2015, Jennifer Gibson, Reprieve staff attorney, said:
"The Lo Porto family's terrible ordeal shows that the secret drone program is nothing like as accurate as the US Government claims. Yet there are many more civilian victims who have yet to receive a public apology - notably Faisal bin ali Jaber, who lost two innocent relatives to a drone strike in Yemen.
"Cash payouts are no substitute for genuine transparency. Why won't the US Government come clean and apologize to all the civilians, including non-Westerners, wrongly killed by the misguided drone program?"
Giovanni Lo Porto, 37, was being held hostage by al-Qaida at the time of his death. Last year, President Obama, acknowledged that Lo Porto and an American named Warren Weinstein, 73, had accidentally been killed in a secret counter-terrorism mission.
In April 2015, President Obama publicly apologized for the drone killing of Giovanni Lo Porto - and announced an independent inquiry into their killings.
Faisal bin ali Jaber, a Yemeni environmental engineer whose innocent family members were killed in a US strike, has not yet had an acknowledgement of their deaths.
Faisal's brother-in-law Salem and his nephew Waleed died in an August 2012 strike in their village. Salem was an anti-al Qaeda imam who is survived by a widow and seven young children; Waleed was a 26 year-old police officer with a wife and infant child.
Leaked intelligence indicates that U.S. officials knew they had killed civilians shortly after the strike on Mr Jaber's family. In July 2014, the family was offered a plastic bag containing $100,000 in sequentially-marked US dollar bills at a meeting with the Yemeni National Security Bureau (NSB). The NSB official who had requested the meeting told a family representative that the money came from the US and that he had been asked to pass it along.
In November 2013, Faisal had traveled to Washington D.C. and discussed the strike with Senators and White House officials. Many offered personal regrets, but the US government has refused to publicly acknowledge or apologize for the attack.
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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Despite 100% Pentagon Audit Failure Rate, House Passes $883.7 Billion NDAA
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Despite the Pentagon's repeated failures to pass audits and various alarming policies, 81 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted with 200 Republicans on Wednesday to advance a $883.7 billion annual defense package.
The Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, unveiled by congressional negotiators this past Saturday, still needs approval from the Senate, which is expected to vote next week. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he plans to vote no and spoke out against the military-industrial complex.
The push to pass the NDAA comes as this congressional session winds down and after the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced last month that it had failed yet another audit—which several lawmakers highlighted after the Wednesday vote.
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairs and co-founders of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said in a joint statement, "Time and time again, Congress seems to be able to find the funds necessary to line the pockets of defense contractors while neglecting the problems everyday Americans face here at home."
"Instead of fighting the rising cost of healthcare, gas, or groceries, this Congress prioritized rewarding the wealthy and well-connected military-industrial complex with even more unaccountable funds," they continued. "After a seventh failed audit in a row, it's disappointing that our amendment to hold the Pentagon accountable by penalizing the DOD's budget by 0.5% for each failed audit was stripped out of the final bill. It's time Congress demanded accountability from the Pentagon."
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Several of the 124 House Democrats who voted against the NDAA cited those "culture war" policies, in addition to concerns about how the Pentagon spends massive amounts of money that could go toward improving lives across the country.
"Once again, Congress has passed a massive military authorization bill that prioritizes endless military spending over the critical needs of American families. This year's NDAA designates $900 billion for military spending," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), noting the audit failures. "While I recognize the long-overdue 14.5% raise for our lowest-ranking enlisted personnel is important, this bill remains flawed. The bloated military budget continues to take away crucial funding from programs that could help millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet."
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As Omar, a leading critic of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, also pointed out: "The NDAA includes a provision that blocks the Pentagon from using data on casualties and deaths from the Gaza Ministry of Health or any sources relying on those statistics. This is an alarming erasure of the suffering of the Palestinian people, ignoring the human toll of ongoing violence."
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Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who voted against the NDAA, directed attention to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set to be run by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
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Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who also opposed the NDAA, wrote in a Tuesday opinion piece for MSNBC that he looks forward to working with DOGE "to reduce waste and fraud at the Pentagon, while strongly opposing any cuts to programs likeSocial Security, Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
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