[AIN] DRONE STRIKES - UK NATIONALS & DUAL-CITZ

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06379995
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2019
• Case Number: F-2014-00434
• Publication Date: March 20, 2014

Approved for Release: 2019/10/01 C06379995
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Schmitt, Eric
Thursday, March 20, 2014 10:10 AM
Mark Mazzetti
[AIN] Drone strikes - UK nationals & dual-citz
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
Mark Mazzetti and I are helping a NYT colleague in London with an article about the British practice of
stripping citizens of their citizenship as punishment for terrorism-related offenses.
Our colleague noticed that several individuals who were stripped of their British citizenship were later targeted
by U.S. drone strikes. This begs the larger question, what type of cooperation/coordination is there between the
U.S. and the U.K. in those cases when the U.S. carries out drone strikes against individuals who are or were
British citizens?
In addition to that broader question, here are some specific questions related to specific cases:
1) Are the names of nationals from allied countries on the so-called U.S. kill list communicated to those allied
countries? For example, British nationals Ibrahim Adam and Mohammed Azmer Khan are both believed to
have been killed by a drone strike in Waziristan in November 2011; Abdul Jabbar a year earlier. Did London
know they were targets?
2/ Specifically, in the case of Bilal Berjawi, a former dual British-Lebanese national linked to al-Shabab who
was deprived of his UK citizenship in October 2010 and killed by a US drone in Somalia in February 2012
within hours of calling his wife in London on his cell phone, was there any communication between the US and
British government about either the stripping or the droning or both? Had Berjawi been on any Kill List and did
London know?
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3/ Ditto with Mohamed Saks, former dual Egyptian-British national also linked to al-Shabab and childhood
friends with Berjawi, stripped in Oct. 2010 and droned in February 2012.
4/ Why was Mandi Hashi, who was stripped of his British citizenship when he was in Somalia in the summer of
2012 and then picked up and detained by the U.S. in Djibouti a couple of months later, sent to a high-security
prison in New York? Why was it decided that he would be tried in the U.S. and not in his former home, the
U.K., or in Africa?
Anything you can provide on these specific cases and/or the issue more broadly would be very helpful.
Thanks,
Eric & Mark
Eric Schmitt
New York Times
202.862.0342o
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