Mar 5,2020: International war crimes judges ruled on Thursday that a probe into wartime abuses in Afghanistan must go ahead, including looking into possible atrocities committed by US forces, as they overturned a previous court ruling.
The call was immediately hailed by human rights organisations as a “pivotal moment” for victims of the central Asian country’s 18-year-war since the 2001 US invasion.
But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked the International Criminal Court’s decision as a “reckless” move and “a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body”.
Guissou Jahangiri, deputy president of the International Federation for Human Rights, called the ICC decision “a pivotal moment for victims in Afghanistan and beyond”.
It sends “a much-needed signal to current and would-be perpetrators of atrocities that justice may one day catch up to them,” Human Rights Watch’s Param-Preet Singh added.
Pompeo, speaking at a news conference however said it was “all the more reckless for this ruling to come just days after the United States signed a historic peace deal on Afghanistan, which is the best chance for peace and a generation.”
