The Shepherd Who Took Rumsfeld to Court

[Whoa_Nelly]

In a story that has so far received absolutely no coverage in the US press (but that has been widely reported in the Arab media), a 71-year-old Iraqi shepherd is suing US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks, the recently retired general who led the Iraq invasion, claiming that the US bombed his desert encampment, killing 17 family members.

The shepherd, Abud Sarhan, told the court on Sunday that he had relocated his family from the village of Al-Altach because of its proximity to an Iraqi military camp on the advice of US-distributed pamphlets.


<snip>

Al Jazeera reports that the judge delayed the opening session of the case for 75 minutes, hoping that the United States would send a representative. Alas, no one showed up.

more...
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/archives/000158.html

[realFedUp]

1. an interesting site...

Is Asscroft all over that one?

[IkeWarnedUs]

2. I wonder if some US attorney would want to take up his case

Consignment on $200 million is nothing to sneeze at - not to mention publicity.

[smallprint]

3. i remember reading about that

on the electroniciraq.net site, a few days after it happened

i don't think i could even find 17 of my closest relatives, much less lose them all on the same day... what a loss

[canuck]

4. OMG, is this the same guy from a couple weeks ago..

who they thought was WMD, on the northern border of Iraq near Syria, so they bombed him, and it turned out he was a shepherd (or sheep smuggler) and the trucks they thought were WMD, contained several hundred sheep.

And his whole family died.

What a fucking awful tragedy. A future Jihad bomber for sure. -what? -in one stroke they destroy his whole family, all his livestock, his entire life. Gone in 30 seconds?

I mean, shit, he was only moving the sheep because the USA pamphlets said to move if you were too close to an army base. Or maybe he was smuggling them into Syria, but who gives a shit.

I hope he has his day in court and WINS!

poor guy.

[CafeToad]

5. Somehow I though this thread

was going to be about Chevy Chase.

(and apologies to the actual shepherd for this flippant post)