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U.S. Revokes Visa of I.C.C. Prosecutor Pursuing Afghan War Crimes [1]

['Marlise Simons', 'Megan Specia']

Date: 2019-04-05

PARIS — The United States has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor because of her attempts to investigate allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, including any that may have been committed by American forces.

The visa revocation — confirmed on Friday by the office of the chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and the State Department in Washington — was assailed by rights advocates as unprecedented interference by the United States into the workings of the court, established nearly two decades ago to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Ms. Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer for the court, which is based in The Hague, formally requested an investigation more than a year ago into war crimes in Afghanistan. The inquiry would mostly focus on large-scale crimes against civilians attributed to the Taliban and Afghan government forces.

[Read: The I.C.C. has allowed Afghanistan war crimes inquiry to proceed.]

But it would also examine alleged C.I.A. and American military abuse in detention centers in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, and at sites in Poland, Lithuania and Romania, putting the court directly at odds with the United States.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/world/europe/us-icc-prosecutor-afghanistan.html

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