Photo Gallery Kunduz Attack on Trial
It was the most devastating German-ordered attack since World War II: on the night of September 4, 2009, Colonel Georg Klein ordered two American jets to bomb a pair of tanker trucks he believed might be used to attack his base.
The blast killed a large number of people -- exactly how many remains unclear to this day. The Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces, says 91 people were killed. A NATO report arrived at the figure of at least 142 dead or injured. According to research conducted by lawyers representing the victims, it was 137 people.
Bremen-based lawyers Karim Popal (second to right) and Peter Derleder (not pictured) have sued the German state over the incident, asking for a total of around 90,000 ($124,000) in compensation for damages and suffering to the surviving family members of the airstrike's victims.
When Colonel Klein learned on the evening of September 3, 2009, that insurgents had hijacked two tanker trucks very nearby, he made the assumption that these could be used as mobile bombs to attack German forces. It is not yet known whether the officer himself will be called as a witness.
The German defense minister at the time of the attack, Franz Josef Jung, resigned from his later post as labor minister two months after the attack. He had stated that the Kunduz airstrike killed only "terrorist Taliban," not any civilians.
Two protesters hold up signs reading, "Why are you killing my sisters and brothers?" and "Stop the bombardment in Afghanistan!" Since March, the first civil chamber of Bonn's District Court has been hearing a case concerning the deadly military strike. The court must now address the fate of the survivors, as well as the question of what exactly happened in Kunduz.
