Judges close part of ICC Afghanistan investigations that could look at US troops

Judges at the International Criminal Court have issued a decision to formally close part of the prosecutor’s investigations into Afghanistan that previously looked at alleged crimes by US troops and to focus only on actions of the Taliban since 2021, court documents show.

The decision by the chamber formally closes not only the line of inquiry into alleged crimes by US troops, which had already lain dormant since 2021, but also a probe into the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) militia. The office of the prosecutor tells Reuters it has appealed the decision but could not give further details.

It is the latest step in a legal tussle between prosecutors and judges about the Afghanistan case, and comes after the United States issued institutional sanctions against the court, citing US opposition to arrest warrants issued for Israeli officials and ​the investigation into actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

This year, judges ordered prosecutors to split their Afghanistan inquiries into two separate probes — one focusing on the alleged crimes committed by the Taliban since 2021, and the other on the original Afghanistan inquiry, which also looked at alleged war crimes by US troops but has shifted towards looking at the ISIS-K militia.

Judges say they had decided to close part of the case because prosecutors had not shown they would be able to effectively investigate allegations in Afghanistan apart from the Taliban probe. The splitting of the cases means the arrest warrants issued against four Afghan Taliban leaders remain in effect.

It is unclear if formally closing part of the Afghanistan case will be enough to allay American fears over the court exerting jurisdiction over US nationals, as it does not change the court’s founding statute. The statute says the court can prosecute anyone accused of atrocity crimes committed on the territory of ICC member states.