In Season 2, Episode 16 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Daniel McLaughlin, an international lawyer and Legal Director of the Centre for Justice and Accountability (CJA), a California-based legal nonprofit working on behalf of victims of torture and other atrocity crimes. Daniel and CJA are leading a civil suit in San Diego against a Delaware-registered PMC, Spear Operations Group, for war crimes in Yemen. They represent the Yemeni parliamentarian Anssaf Ali Mayo, who was one of the targets of an alleged hit-squad in Yemen. Daniel talks us through the facts of the case, how it ended up in a California courtroom ten years later, and which US and international laws were ostensibly broken by the PMC. He also argues forcefully that the US government has a duty to regulate how former members of its military use their training and know-how.
“Part of what makes this case so notable is that we’re not relying on inferences or circumstantial evidence. The defendants have publicly admitted… that they personally participated in the attempt to kill our client.”
Find the Guns For Hire podcast on the app of your choice
About the podcast
Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it examines the causes and implications of the increasing use of mercenaries in armed conflicts.
The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare reveals about the world we currently inhabit, the future of the international system, and what war may look like in the coming decades.
Further Listening
Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.
Image: A U.S. Army soldier from the 3rd Brigade 25th Infantry Division (L) walks past private contractors talking at a table at Jalalabad Air Field in Nangarhar province May 3, 2011. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (AFGHANISTAN - Tags: MILITARY SOCIETY)