Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A Pakistani man is suing the U.S. government for $500 million over the death of his son and brother, whom he said were killed in a U.S. unmanned drone strike last year, his attorney said.
Shahzad Akbar, attorney for Kareem Khan, told CNN his client also wants all drone attacks halted. He said he has submitted a legal notice to U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Islamabad's CIA station chief, Jonathan Banks.
Kareem Khan told CNN that an airstrike on December 31, 2009, targeted his home in Machikhel, a village in North Waziristan.
Khan, a 43-year-old journalist, said he wasn't there at the time but that his family described a huge blast when the missiles hit. He said the reports that the strike killed militants were false. Instead, he says, the missiles killed his 35-year-old brother, Asif Iqbal, a teacher with a master's degree in English literature, his 18 year-old son Zaneullah Khan, a staff member at a government school, and a construction worker who was working on a village mosque.
Akbar said drone strikes are killing innocent civilians and also violating international law by ignoring the ban on targeted killings and assassinations away from a battlefield. CNN
