LONDON (AP) - In a new claim of British complicity in rights violations overseas, a human rights group took legal action Monday against the British government, accusing it of passing on intelligence to help deadly U.S. covert drone attacks in Pakistan.
The challenge is the latest in a string of lawsuits against U.K. spy agencies for sharing intelligence with foreign governments - including the late Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya - in ways that may have put victims in lethal danger.
The London-based charity Reprieve and the law firm Leigh Day & Co. filed papers to the High Court claiming that civilian staff at Britain's electronic listening agency, GCHQ, could be "secondary parties to murder" for providing "locational intelligence" to the CIA in directing its drone attack program.
Reprieve was acting on behalf of Noor Khan, 27, a Pakistani whose father was killed by a drone strike in northwest Pakistan in March 2011 while attending a gathering of elders. More than 40 other people were killed in that attack, the group said.
The nonprofit group, which helps death row prisoners and Guantanamo Bay inmates, urged the British government to be more transparent about its role - if any - in the drone program.
"What has the government got to hide? If they're not supplying information as part of the CIA's illegal drone war, why not tell us?" director Clive Stafford Smith said.
British officials have never commented publicly on the drones.