ICC chief prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Taliban leaders over persecution of women
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Application says there are reasonable grounds to believe crimes against humanity being committed against women and girls in Afghanistan. The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor said on Thursday he was seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity.
![[Haibatullah Akhundzada looking at the camera]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b48d14344119d11f467272c923a7e2591bc3d2c8/57_0_439_549/master/439.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”.
Khan said that Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQ community, were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban”. He added: “Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable.”.
ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application before deciding whether to issue an arrest warrant – a process that could take weeks or even months. The court, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has no police force of its own and relies on its 125 member states to carry out its arrest warrants – with mixed results. In theory this means that anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.
