The family of an Italian aid worker, who was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in 2015 will be paid €1m (£850,000) by the Obama administration in its first known and documented payment of its kind made by the US government to the family of a drone-strike victim killed outside a declared warzone.

The 37 year old Giovanni Lo Porto was being held hostage by al-Qaida at the time of his death and his family had been led to believe a month before the strike that he was close to being freed.

The United States president Barack Obama, acknowledged last year, that Lo Porto and an American named Warren Weinstein, 73, had accidentally been killed in a secret counter-terrorism mission and expressed his regret for the deaths.

A spokesperson for the US embassy in Rome, said that, “We did that knowing that no dollar figure would ever bring back their loved ones and, out of respect for the families, we are not sharing any details of those payments.”

The agreement includes this stipulation, “This does not imply the consent by the United States of America to the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Italian courts in disputes, if any, directly or indirectly connected with this instrument. Nothing in this instrument implies a waiver to sovereign or personal immunity.”

Jack Serle, an expert on the drone program and journalist at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, said that, “It has been a common tool in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not accepting responsibility, but is used to try to soothe the anger, essentially saying sorry for the event and for what happened, while also not accepting responsibility.”

“I don’t know what kind of impact this will have on all the other people who think they may have claims because nominally those strikes remain unavowed,” Serle said.

Jennifer Gibson, from the human rights group Reprieve, said that, “I think at this point there is no indication that this goes beyond the compensation of a western hostage killed in a drone strike.”  “The Lo Porto and Weinstein families are the only families that have been acknowledged and apologized to by the administration. Thus far there hasn’t been a single Pakistani or Yemeni family that has received the same acknowledgment,” Gibson said.

Lo Porto’s mother expressed her sorrow about his death in a statement, that, “I will not see my son at home with his smile. They took my precious son and they also killed me. Now all that remains for me is to wait until the last day of my life for divine, not earthly, justice.”

Also Read: Obama, Bill hit campaign trail for Hillary Clinton

Nandini