KARLSRUHE, Germany, April 20 (UPI) -- German prosecutors dropped a criminal case against a Bundeswehr colonel who ordered an air raid in Afghanistan that killed 142 people, many of them civilians.
The prosecution office in Karlsruhe concluded Col. Georg Klein and his fellow officers didn't know civilians were at the target site.
"After a thorough assessment of the situation, they could assume that there were only insurgents present," the prosecution said in a statement, adding that Klein had therefore not violated international or national criminal law.
Klein ordered the Sept. 4 bombing raid, executed by two U.S. F-15 jets, after Taliban insurgents hijacked two fuel tankers outside the German base near Kunduz. When the planes dropped the bombs, many civilians were near the tankers to collect fuel.
A political inquiry into the raid is ongoing.
German Defense Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg is facing allegations that he misjudged the severity of the raid when initially saying that the bombing was an adequate reaction to the threat. He has since labeled it a mistake.
Allegations of a coverup already cost his predecessor in office, Franz Josef Jung, his job in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet.
The inquiry committee will hear around 40 witnesses, including senior military officials and Guttenberg to clarify what happened before, during and after the bombing.
