ARLINGTON, VA — A U.S. federal jury has found an MQ-9 Reaper drone not guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter in the aerial bombing death of a young American teenager, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was killed in Yemen in October 2011.
As the verdict was read, the defendant YIPPEEKIYAY-88 sat motionless in the courtroom with a blank expression, its onboard camera swiveling back and forth between the jury and its operator, Capt. Ted Slaughter, who would have faced charges as an accessory to murder had there been a conviction.
Outside, dozens of supportive Reaper and Predator drones, waving signs like "01010000 01100001 01110101 01101100" and "01100111 00101101 01101000 01100001 01100100", flew back and forth over the courthouse.
Awlaki family attorney Gul Haji Rachman gave a tearful speech to reporters, in which he vowed the fight was not over.
