The judges agreed with the International Criminal Court’s request to resume the investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, stating that these charges are not being seriously investigated by Afghan authorities.
The Kabul authorities failed to demonstrate that “Afghanistan has achieved at all, or made investigations in a fashion that covers the whole spectrum of investigations that the public prosecutor (the International Criminal) plans to perform,” the court declared on Monday.
The decision was made a little over a year after public prosecutor Karim Khan declared his intention to appeal the Afghan case to the International Criminal Court because, under the Taliban regime, “there is no longer a possibility to conduct real and effective local investigations” into these allegations in Afghanistan.
The crimes allegedly committed by the Afghan government forces, the Taliban, the American forces, and the foreign and American intelligence elements dating back to 2002 were subject to an investigation by the international criminal judges during the state of Fato Bensouda, Khan’s predecessor, in 2020.
The United States does not accept the jurisdiction of a court and is not a member of it.
The decision to investigate members of American institutions imposed the Trump administration sanctions on Bensouda, who has left her position since then. The Afghan authorities asked that the matter be taken over, thus the investigation was put on hold.
The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 as a court of last resort to look into allegations of atrocities in nations that are unable or unwilling to prosecute those responsible.
When Khan asked the court to revive the probe last year, he stated that he would “give precedence” to other elements of the investigation while concentrating on the atrocities done by the Taliban and the Afghan Group of the Islamic State.
The International Criminal Court accepts to re-investigate Afghanistan’s crimes
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