ICC examines possible Afghan war crimes

The International Criminal Court is examining possible war crimes by all sides in the Afghanistan conflict, a senior official confirmed on Thursday, although observers said action against Nato soldiers was a far distant prospect.

The court is still gathering information and has yet to decide whether to launch a full investigation in the nation, where fresh allegations of abuses are emerging amid the deteriorating security situation.

A full-blown probe by the ICC in Afghanistan would be logistically tough to carry out and would face a series of legal, political and diplomatic hurdles.

Béatrice Le Fraper du Hellen, a special adviser to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, ICC prosecutor, said the court had since 2007 been collecting data about allegations made against the various parties to the conflict.

She said: “What we have found out with Afghanistan is that it’s particularly complex. It’s taking time to gather information on crimes allegedly committed on the government side, on the Taliban side and by foreign forces.”

Afghanistan is a signatory of the treaty that established The Hague-based ICC, and chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters that any war crime committed on its territory by Afghan nationals or foreigners was of interest to the court.

The court’s work wasn’t yet focusing on specific incidents and didn’t have a time limit for completion, she said. She stressed that the review – similar to exercises already underway in relation to conflicts in Georgia, Colombia, Kenya and Ivory Coast – didn’t mean the court would necessarily start a full probe.

Last week a Nato air strike in Afghanistan killed scores of civilians. Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, described the strike, which was called in by a German officer, as a major ”error of judgement.”

Afghan officials have previously complained about what they said were heavy civilian death tolls caused by unwarranted Nato air strikes.

Nato officials have accused Taliban and al-Qaeda of various criminal acts in Afghanistan, including attacking schools and kidnapping and murdering aid workers and other innocent civilians.

Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of Amnesty International, the human rights group, welcomed the ICC’s work, which he said was probably not aimed primarily at Nato forces.

He said: “It’s really the Taliban and the insurgents who have engaged in gross and systematic violations of the laws of war. So anything that will press them to behave better is positive.”

One complication facing any investigation of foreign forces by the Hague-based ICC would be bilateral agreements struck by Nato members with Afghanistan to exclude their soldiers from the court’s jurisdiction.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo also added that there would be no need for an ICC investigation if the Afghan authorities launched credible proceedings of their own, unless Kabul or the UN Security Council specifically asked the court to get involved.