The US drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general during an official visit to Baghdad was illegal under international law, according to the United Nations most senior investigator into extrajudicial killings.
Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur, said that Washington had failed to provide sufficient evidence that there was an imminent threat to its interests to justify the strike on Qasem Soleimani’s convoy as it left Baghdad airport on January 3.
Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, was the mastermind of Iran’s regional network of proxy armies across the Middle East.
Washington accused Soleimani of organising attacks by militias on US forces in the region.
“Major General Soleimani was in charge of Iran military strategy, and actions, in Syria
