Crescent International
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has express concern over “unprecedented” sanctions imposed by the US on the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor over investigation into US war crimes in Afghanistan.
Far from conforming to international law and the Geneva Conventions, the US regime is acting as an outlaw.
Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, announced sanctions against the court’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and another senior official, Phakiso Mochochoko, on September 2.
He accused the Hague-based tribunal of “targeting Americans” because they are investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan.
“We will not tolerate its illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction,” Pompeo said.
Presumably, the Washington warlords have the right to overthrow leaders of other countries, assassinate them and even grab them and bring them for trial in the US as they did with Manuel Noriega, the president of Panama.
Pompeo accused the court of being an “illegitimate” and “corrupted” institution.
He offered no proof for his scandalous allegations.
The top American diplomat who had also served as CIA director, admitted to a university audience last year that we “we lied, we cheated, we stole”.
He has the gall to call the ICC an “illegitimate” and “corrupted” institution.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary General expressed concern about US sanctions against ICC officials.
Dujarric said “we trust that any restriction taken against individuals will be implemented consistently.”
He was referring to the decades-old US deal with the UN to host the world body’s headquarters in New York.
“I strongly reject such unprecedented and unacceptable measures against a treaty-based international organization,” said O-Gon Kwon, president of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties.
Rights groups also condemned the measures, with Human Rights Watch international justice director, Richard Dicker, saying it was a “stunning perversion of US sanctions.”
The Trump regime “has twisted these sanctions to obstruct justice, not only for certain war crimes victims, but for atrocity victims anywhere looking to the International Criminal Court for justice,” Dicker said.
The US has taken offence over two probes the ICC has launched.
In December 2019, Fatou Bensouda announced that there were sufficient grounds to launch an investigation into Israeli war crimes in its war on Gaza in 2014.
Then in March 2020, the court gave Ms. Bensouda permission to open investigation into US war crimes in Afghanistan.
The US immediately imposed visa restrictions on Ms. Bensouda.
But she was able to travel to New York to brief UN Security Council members on cases it had referred to the court.
The US and its allies have killed tens of thousands of innocent Afghans since they invaded Afghanistan in October 2001.
They have bombed wedding parties as well as prayer gatherings.
Pompeo said that since “the United States has never ratified the Rome Statute that created the court,” it will not allow Americans to be subjected to its jurisdiction.
While technically correct, any member-state can call upon the ICC to investigate war crimes by an individual or country if the latter fails to investigate such charges in its own courts.
The US has no intention of investigating, much less prosecuting any of its soldiers that have and continue to commit egregious crimes in war theaters anywhere.
In November 2019, Donald Trump clear Eddie Gallagher of war crimes charges.
After killing an ISIS member with a hunting knife, Gallagher posed for photographs with the mutilated body.
In sworn testimony before Congress, other veterans described Gallagher as “toxic” who was “OK with killing anything that moved.”
The same applies to the illegitimate Zionist entity that kills children women and men under its occupation.
It also continues to kill unarmed Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israel and the US are two of the few countries that rejected the founding of the court, while 123 countries have agreed to its mandate.
The ICC condemned the sanctions on September 2 as “another attempt to interfere with the Court’s judicial and prosecutorial independence and crucial work to address grave crimes of concern to the international community as mandated under the ICC Rome Statute.”
“These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks against the Court, the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, and the rule of law more generally,” the statement added.
It is interesting to note that neither the US nor its Zionist ally question the ICC’s allegation of war crimes.
Both have sought refuge behind the excuse that they have not ratified the Rome Statute and are, therefore, not subject to ICC jurisdiction.
