WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will problem financial sanctions in opposition to worldwide officers who're investigating doable conflict cri
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will problem financial sanctions in opposition to worldwide officers who’re investigating doable conflict crimes by American troops in Afghanistan and bar them from getting into america, senior officers introduced Thursday.
President Trump ordered the restrictions as a warning to the Worldwide Prison Courtroom, the place investigators have collected proof of crimes in opposition to humanity — together with torture and rape — by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and in C.I.A. interrogation services overseas.
The sanctions and visa restrictions have been introduced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Protection Secretary Mark T. Esper, Legal professional Basic William P. Barr and Robert O’Brien, the White Home nationwide safety adviser.
“We’re involved that adversary nations are manipulating the Worldwide Prison Courtroom by encouraging these allegations in opposition to United States personnel,” the Trump administration mentioned in an announcement.
It additionally cited “sturdy purpose to consider there may be corruption and misconduct” by the courtroom and its chief prosecutor, “calling into query the integrity of its investigation into American service members.”
In Thursday’s announcement on the State Division, Mr. Barr mentioned American officers are involved that Russia is attempting to control the courtroom.
The USA just isn’t a signatory to the Worldwide Prison Courtroom, which was created in 2002 to research crimes in opposition to humanity and genocide, and is predicated in The Hague, within the Netherlands. However Americans may be topic to its jurisdiction if the courtroom is investigating crimes in international locations which have joined, together with Afghanistan.
Afghan officers even have objected to the inquiry and mentioned they’re independently investigating doable conflict crimes.
Mr. Pompeo known as the courtroom’s inquiry a “actually breathtaking motion by an unaccountable political establishment, masquerading as a authorized physique.”
Final 12 months, Mr. Pompeo revoked the visa of the courtroom’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, after she had signaled her intent to pursue the allegations. He additionally vowed to revoke visas for anybody concerned in an investigation in opposition to Americans.
Ms. Bensouda has mentioned that the courtroom had sufficient info to show that U.S. forces had “dedicated acts of torture, merciless therapy, outrages upon private dignity, rape and sexual violence” in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, and later in clandestine C.I.A. services in Poland, Romania and Lithuania — all three international locations which might be occasion to the worldwide courtroom.