International Criminal Court to continue probe on Afghanistan war crimes
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Netherlands: The International Criminal Court said Kabul showed no interest in a domestic investigation into the war crimes committed in Afghanistan and allowed its chief prosecutor to continue a probe into the matter.
The ICC probe was first launched in 2006.
The former Afghan government had asked the Hague-based ICC to pause its investigation in early 2020. This was supposed to give the local government a chance to conduct an internal probe. However, when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the situation turned chaotic.
The ICC in an official statement said that judges are considering that Afghanistan is not presently carrying out "genuine investigations" that would justify a deferral of the court's investigations, reported AFP. Prosecutors in September 2021 asked ICC judges permission to resume their probe. This request was transmitted to the current authorities of the country and ICC received no observations in response.
Former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in 2020 said there was "reasonable" suspicion that war crimes were committed in the country by the Taliban and US forces, specifically in the CIA secret detention centres abroad. Current chief prosecutor Karim Khan in 2021 said that he was omitting the US from the investigation because the "worst crimes" were committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State group. Rights groups criticised the decision to "deprioritise" the actions of US forces.