US included in war crimes request
NETHERLANDS: The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has asked for authorisation to investigate reported human rights abuses in Afghanistan, including allegations of rape and torture by the United States military and the CIA, crimes against humanity by the Taliban, and war crimes by Afghan security forces.
The request marks the first time that ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has targeted Americans for alleged war crimes.
Bensouda said yesterday an investigation under the auspices of the international tribunal could break through what she called ‘‘near-total impunity’' in Afghanistan.
The formal application to judges at the court also sets up a possible showdown with Washington. The US is not a member state of the court, but its citizens can be charged with crimes committed in countries that are members.
The US State Department said it was reviewing Bensouda’s authorisation request, but that it opposed the ICC’s involvement in Afghanistan.
‘‘An ICC investigation with respect to US personnel would be wholly unwarranted and unjustified. More broadly, our overall assessment is that commencement of an ICC investigation will not serve the interests of either peace or justice in Afghanistan.’'
As well as alleged crimes by American troops in Afghanistan, Bensouda wants to investigate the activities of CIA operatives at secret detention facilities in Afghanistan and in Poland, Romania and Lithuania, which also are members of the court.
Bensouda said in a summary of her request that ‘‘information available provides a reasonable basis to believe’' that US military personnel and CIA operatives ‘‘committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence against conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan and other locations, principally in the
2003-2004 period’'.
The prosecutor’s office said there was reason to believe that at least 54 prisoners were abused by US military personnel, and at least
24 by CIA operatives. The alleged abuse included waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and was allowed by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks. President Barack Obama banned such practices after taking office in 2009.
The 16-page summary said the people likely to be targeted in any future investigations ‘‘include persons who devised, authorised or bore oversight responsibility for the implementation by members of the US armed forces and members of the CIA of the interrogation techniques that resulted in the alleged commission of crimes’'.
Bensouda’s application says Afghan security forces also are suspected of involvement in ‘‘systematic patterns of torture and cruel treatment of conflict-related detainees in Afghan detention facilities, including acts of sexual violence’’.
The Taliban and its allies are suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes ‘‘as part of a widespread and systematic campaign of intimidation, targeted killings and abductions of civilians’’, the document states. The victims - an estimated 17,700 from 2009 to 2016 - usually were perceived as supporting the government or opposing the Taliban rebels.
Richard Dicker, the international justice director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the request ‘‘to pursue abuses by all sides’’.
The request said that while the US maintained that thousands of investigations of alleged prisoner abuse had been conducted, these appeared only to cover low-level suspects.
It said alleged abuses of people in CIA custody ‘‘appear to have been committed with particular cruelty, involving the infliction of serious physical and psychological injury, over prolonged periods, and including acts committed in a manner calculated to offend cultural and religious values, and leaving victims deeply traumatised’’.
Former US president Bill Clinton signed the Rome treaty that established the ICC, but President George W Bush renounced this, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.
There is no set timeframe for the ICC judges to rule on Bensouda’s request. Victims have until January 31 to make their views about the possible investigation known to the judges who will assess the request. –AP