Diplomat calls punishment of US military for bombing Kunduz hospital mockery of justice

Moscow believes that the decision to discipline the US military for bombing the hospital in Afghanistan’s Kunduz is mockery of justice, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, democracy and rule of law, Konstantin Dolgov has told TASS.

"Washington says sixteen military servicemen, including commandoes, have been disciplined for attacking a hospital of Doctors without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which caused heavy civilian casualties. It is nakedly clear that this measure is absolutely laughable," Dolgov said. "Clearly, Washington has failed to find the strength to properly punish those responsible for the tragic death of civilians."

"Certainly, disciplinary punishment is mockery of justice, the more so, since Kunduz is far from the first civilian facility to have been destroyed during the Afghan campaign," he said.

"Let us recall the air strikes against Afghan weddings and hospitals. There have been many such cases - in Afghanistan and Iraq," Dolgov said. "Regrettably, not a single person has borne serious responsibility for these absolutely unlawful actions. Nobody has been punished for that, just as for torture in CIA secret jails."

"This sort of double dealing does no credit to the US legal system," Dolgov said. "Such actions by Obama are poor consolation for those who lost their relatives in Kunduz."

A US military plane hit a hospital in Kunduz, where an operation against the Taliban was in progress at the beginning of October last year. The United States said 24 people, including 12 doctors and nurses and three children, were killed. US President Barack Obama made a phone call to the head of Doctors without Borders, Joanne Liu, to present apologies and to Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai to offer condolences over the loss of human life.
[tass.ru]
29/4/16
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