Introduction

31 August 2010 One year ago, on 4 September 2009, two American jets attacked a crowd and two fuel tankers on the riverbank of the Kunduz River in Afghanistan following an order from German Colonel Georg Klein. Approximately 102 people were killed or injured. The reactions of German authorities, the government, the army, and law enforcement agencies within the last twelve months have been disappointing and insufficient. Furthermore, the German public seems to have lost interest in this incident and popular opinion supports the termination of the German mission in Afghanistan sooner rather than later.

One year after the incident the following can be stated: Firstly, the German army and government tried to cover up the fact that the majority of casualties killed in the air strike were civilians. Secondly, German authorities failed to conduct own investigations to establish who had been killed or injured in this incident. One year after the incident no authoritative list of victims exists and the number was corrected time and again, recognizing more and more victims. Furthermore, the persons responsible for the killing and injuring of at least 102 people have not been held accountable thus far. The victims' families were offered 5,000 USD each; far too little for those families who lost their primary breadwinners. To date, there has been no official apology by Germany to the victims.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights followed the incident from the beginning. Since April 2010, attorney Wolfgang Kaleck represents one of the victims: a thirty-five year old father who lost his two young sons. Regarding the criminal investigation proceedings, a comprehensive study was presented which concluded a prima facie case that the German soldiers involved in the incident committed crimes under the German criminal code, but not under international law. According to this analysis, a continuation of the investigations by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Dresden was requested. A decision is pending.

Concerning the issue of reparations, the law firm Geulen & Klinger stepped in. They resumed negotiation talks with the German Ministry of Defense, after initial talks with another lawyers' team were suspended. These talks are still on-going, but there is a large discrepancy between the 33,000 USD claimed by representatives of the victims, based on previous compensations paid by the German government to victims in Afghanistan, to the offered reparation sum of 5,000 USD. The possibility for the victims to enter legal actions is still open.