Amsterdam:
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Monday stated he was in search of approval to resume a war crimes investigation into Afghanistan, focusing on the actions of the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) militia.
A statement stated the request was getting made to the court’s judges in light of developments because the Islamist Taliban movement seized manage of Afghanistan in a lightning advance last month.
Prosecutors had previously also looked into suspected crimes by US forces and Afghan government troops. But Karim Khan, six months into his nine-year tenure, stated they would now “deprioritise” that element due to lack of sources, and rather focus on “the scale and nature of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court”.
Afghan human rights activist Horia Mosadiq, who has been assisting victims to assistance the ICC probe for quite a few years, named the announcement “an insult to thousands of other victims of crimes by Afghan government forces and US and NATO forces”.
The ICC had currently spent 15 years seeking into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan ahead of opening a complete investigation last year.
But that probe was place on hold by the Afghan government, which stated it was investigating the crimes itself. The Hague-based ICC is a court of last resort, intervening only when a member nation is unable or unwilling to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
Khan stated the fall of the internationally recognised Afghan government and its replacement by the Taliban represented a “significant change of circumstances”.
“After reviewing matters carefully, I have reached the conclusion that, at this time, there is no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations … within Afghanistan,” his statement stated.
UPHILL BATTLE
The court had identified there was a affordable basis to think war crimes had been committed in between 2003 and 2014, amongst them suspected mass killings of civilians by the Taliban, as effectively as suspected torture of prisoners by Afghan authorities and, to a lesser extent, by US forces and the US CIA.
But the United States is not a party to the ICC, and imposed sanctions against the workplace of the prosecutor for investigating the part of US. forces. Shifting the focus of the probe could enable mend the court’s relationship with Washington.
A lawyer who represents Afghan victims of suspected U.S. torture in the ICC investigation stated the narrowing of its focus was “deeply flawed”.
“Allowing powerful states to get away (with) multi-year, multi-continent torture against so many, feeds impunity for all,” she stated on Twitter.
Judges will now overview the request.
If authorized, the investigation will face an uphill battle to collect proof, as the Taliban rulers seem unlikely to cooperate in the very same way as the governments in location because the Taliban’s last period in energy ended in 2001.
The Taliban administration in Kabul could not instantly be reached for comment.
“Early indications suggest that their policies on matters related to criminal justice and other material considerations are unlikely to conform to those adopted since 2002,” Khan stated in his submission to the court.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)