Afghan War Crimes to be Investigated: The chief prosecutor of the The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) has announced that she wants to start an official investigation into the possible war crimes which happened during the war in Afghanistan.
“Following a meticulous preliminary examination of the situation, I have come to the conclusion that all legal criteria required under the Rome Statute to commence an investigation have been met,” Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Friday.
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Afghan War Crimes: Investigation
The prosecutor did not name the specific parties she seeks to investigate. But in a report last year, the ICC prosecutors said the Taliban and its affiliates, Afghan authorities and members of the US armed forces and CIA may have committed war crimes.
“In due course, I will file my request for judicial authorization to open an investigation, submitting that there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan,” Bensouda said on Friday.
She added it is up to the judges of the court in The Hague to decide whether the criteria to authorize an investigation on (Afghan War Crimes) are fulfilled. The report by Bensouda last year said that there was a “reasonable basis to believe” US armed forces and the CIA may have subjected more than 60 detainees to “torture”.
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“Members of US armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture,” the prosecutors’ office said in that report, adding that CIA members also seemed to have tortured 27 detainees in secret detention facilities elsewhere, but not in Afghanistan.
The report said that incidents appeared to have taken place in 2003 and 2004. The 2016 report also said there “is a reasonable basis to believe that” crimes against humanity were committed by the Taliban and its affiliates.
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