Australian military and intelligence personnel involved in controversial US drone targeting operations could face crimes against…
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Australian military and intelligence personnel involved in controversial US drone targeting operations could face crimes against humanity charges, according to former prime minister Malcolm Fraser. Mr Fraser, Liberal prime minister from 1975–83, said Australians working at the US-run Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap - which reportedly plays a key role in locating drone targets - do not have the same legal protection as their US counterparts. “The greater danger is the use to which Pine Gap is now put,” Mr Fraser told RN Breakfast. “Initially Pine Gap was collecting information - it was, if you like, listening in. "It’s now targeting weapons systems. It’s also very much involved in the targeting of drones. "The purposes for which drones are used are going to be outlawed at some point by international agreement, and the Americans might believe that Americans involved in those programs are given legal cover under the War Powers Resolution passed after 9/11. ”[It] gives totally unlimited power, no geographic limits, no time limits, using any means available or that might become available to an American president to do so. “But that resolution gives no legal cover to Australians operating out of Pine Gap who are complicit in finding, identifying, locating the so-called target.”