Five years after Afghanistan fell into the hands of the Taliban as they captured Kabul, the International Criminal Court has reportedly split its investigation of Taliban crimes from the broader Afghanistan probe in a move that could ease pressure from Washington on the court. According to Middle East Eye, judges at the ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II have ordered prosecutors to open a standalone investigation into alleged Taliban persecution of women, separating it from the court's long-running Afghanistan investigation, which also covered alleged crimes by US personnel. The Chamber reportedly found that Taliban conduct since 2021 is "materially different" from the conduct the original investigation was authorised to examine, and directed prosecutors to open a standalone inquiry.
The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor would neither confirm nor deny the decision to Euronews, but it did indicate that the Taliban are the core concern of its probe. "The Office of the Prosecutor is unable to provide further comment on the investigation, or on the existence or non-existence of any alleged Court filing which is not public," the spokesperson added. Shaharzad Akbar, former head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and now a fellow at Oxford's Wolfson College, did not mince words on the split.
"Any selective justice is deeply troubling," Akbar told Euronews. "It is also alarming to hear the US's bullying, intimidation and attacks on the court are influencing decisions made about investigations." Akbar said Afghan civil society groups have "repeatedly asked the ICC for comprehensive investigations about all allegations that fall within its mandate," including allegations against US forces, and described Washington's conduct toward the court throughout the investigation as "appalling and shameful”. The allegations against US personnel in Afghanistan relate primarily to the documented abuse of detainees at CIA detention facilities there, including the Salt Pit black site north of Kabul, and the conduct of US military interrogators.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee's 2014 report on the CIA's detention and interrogation programme found that detainees were subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other methods that constitute degradation and torture. The next day, the US Justice Department announced it would not open any new criminal investigations as a result of its findings. It also stated that if any foreign government issued an arrest warrant for a US official in connection with the programme, it would not enforce it.
No US government has ever acknowledged wrongdoing by US military or CIA personnel in Afghanistan. During US President Donald Trump's first term, the White House applauded an early ICC ruling that declined to open a formal investigation into US personnel’s actions in Afghanistan, calling it "a major international victory" for "patriots”. The decision was later repealed.
Unlike other international tribunals, the ICC does not separate its investigations by belligerents in a conflict. It probes what it calls a "situation” defined by territory and time period. Afghanistan ratified the Rome Statute in 2003, giving the court jurisdiction over crimes committed on Afghan soil from that date, regardless of who committed them.
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