The US drone strike that killed Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani was “unlawful,” the United Nations expert on extrajudicial killings says in a new report.
Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, concludes it was an “arbitrary killing” that violated the UN charter.
She says the strike violated the UN Charter, with “insufficient evidence provided of an ongoing or imminent attack.”
“No evidence has been provided that General Soleimani specifically was planning an imminent attack against US interests, particularly in Iraq, for which immediate action was necessary and would have been justified,” Callamard writes.
Shiite Muslims wear masks of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani during a protest against the US strike that killed Soleimani in Iraq, in Islamabad on January 5, 2020. (Farooq NAEEM / AFP)
“Soleimani was in charge of Iran’s military strategy, and actions, in Syria and Iraq. But absent an actual imminent threat to life, the course of action taken by the US was unlawful.”
Soleimani was “the world’s top terrorist” and “should have been terminated long ago,” US President Donald Trump said at the time.
The independent rights expert does not speak for the United Nations, but reports her findings to it.
Her report on targeted killings through armed drones — around half of which deals with the Soleimani case — is to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on Thursday.
— AFP
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