US family sues Israeli ex-PM Barak over flotilla raid
The family of a US citizen killed in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship that left nine Turkish activists dead has filed a law suit against former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for the attack.
According to attorneys representing the Turkish family of 19-year-old Furkan Dogan, who also held Turkish citizenship, Barak was served with suit papers in the civil case late Tuesday.
The New York-born teenager was purportedly shot five times in the attack in May 2010.
On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the Turkish-flagged MV Mavi Marmara that was part of the Freedom Flotilla in the high seas in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy. A 10th died recently after four years in a coma.
Barak served as Israel’s minister of military affairs at the time of the raid on the flotilla.
"On board the Mavi Marmara, Israeli forces extinguished the life of a 19-year-old boy holding a video camera," said Hakan Camuz, a representative of Dogan's family, adding, "He was shot five times. The last shot was to his head at point blank range. He deserves justice."
The human rights lawyers who have been trying to force the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to open a criminal probe into the deadly incident are putting the case forward in California under the Alien Tort Claims, Torture Prevention and Anti-Terrorist acts.
"We have been pursuing every possible legal avenue to obtain justice for the victims of the flotilla," said attorney Rodney Dixon.
A UN panel that reviewed the case later denounced the Israeli attack on the vessel as "excessive and unreasonable," but also blamed Turkey.
The flotilla was attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, carrying aid to the Palestinians in the impoverished enclave.
Gaza has been blockaded since June 2007, which has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
The attack sparked international outcry and plunged relations between Tel Aviv and Ankara into an all-time low at the time.
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