FORMER Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is being sued in the US over his nation’s murderous attack on the 2010 Freedom Flotilla to besieged Gaza.

The Turkish parents of 19-year-old US citizen Furkan Dogan, among nine killed in the raid in international waters, sued Mr Barak in federal court in Los Angeles on October 16 for unlawful death and torture.

The nine were killed by Israeli commandos when they stormed the Mavi Marmara, the largest of six vessels in the humanitarian flotilla. Israel claimed to have acted in self-defence against the peace activists.

Mr Barak, Israel’s defence minister at the time, was served with the papers on Tuesday after he gave a speech near Los Angeles. He was still in the city as of Wednesday night.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon branded the lawsuit an “attempt to abuse otherwise legitimate legal tools for the cynical, political purpose of attacking the state of Israel.”