Extrajudicial killing in Kenya reveals CIA's covert role in global counterterrorism operations
Kenya’s Rapid Response Team commandos were sure they had got their man, shooting suspected terrorist Fuad Abubakar Manswab dead as he tried to flee the apartment they had just broken into.
But they soon realized that they had hit the wrong apartment and shot the wrong person. In a case of mistaken identity, they had killed Omar Faraj, a cashier at a butcher's shop.
On March 19, 12 years after Faraj’s death, the Kenyan High Court declared the killing “unlawful” and awarded Faraj’s wife the equivalent of $60,000 in compensation.
The Faraj killing not only exposed the RRT to public scrutiny and litigation. It also cast a spotlight on the Kenyan operations of the RRT's foreign sponsor, the CIA, and in doing so allowed a glimpse into the agency’s secretive Counterterrorism Operations Program, through which the CIA creates, pays, and directs proxy forces in countries around the globe, according to agency veterans.
The death of Faraj, and similar alleged extrajudicial killings by the RRT, also leave the CIA officers who work with the unit on shaky legal ground, according to a former U.S. intelligence community lawyer.