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Germany to compensate victims of Afghan airstrike
Dec 7, 2009, 10:34 GMT
Berlin - Germany is to compensate the families of Afghan civilians killed in an airstrike in September, the Defence Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry was in contact with a lawyer representing the victims' families, a ministry spokesman said in Berlin.
Up to 142 people were killed in the late-night attack on two fuel tanker trucks stolen by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. A German colonel, operating under NATO's Afghan mission, had summoned US fighter bombers to blow up the fuel trucks while they were stalled in a river bed.
German-Afghan lawyer Karim Popal said he represented 78 relatives of people killed on the September 4 airstrike, all of whom had signed legal powers of attorney.
The defence ministry spokesman, Christian Dienst, said they were looking into the possibilities of an out-of-court settlement to avoid years of legal wranglings.
Dienst acknowledged that one difficulty would be to establish who were civilian victims rather than Taliban fighters, and therefore entitled to compensation.
If they failed to reach an out-of-court settlement, Popal said he would sue the German military - or Bundeswehr - for flawed and grossly negligent behaviour.
'The fact is, there will be a solution,' Dienst said.
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