The International Criminal Court has abandoned its inquiry into alleged war crimes by British soldiers in Iraq despite reaffirming there was a “reasonable basis” to believe killings, mistreatment and sexual violence had been committed by troops against Iraqi civilians in detention.
The ICC had been looking into incidents involving UK soldiers in Iraq between 2003 and 2008, after reopening an investigation in 2014 that had been previously dropped.
It confirmed previous assertions that there was a “a reasonable basis to believe that members of the British armed forces committed the war crimes of wilful killing, torture, inhuman/cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and/or other forms of sexual violence”.
The ICC exercises jurisdiction where a country fails to look into claims, including if they are “unwilling or unable” to do so.
ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Thursday said her office decided to drop the inquiry because it could not conclude that the UK authorities had been “inactive” in its own investigations.
She said an investigation would have been warranted if there had been evidence to show that potential perpetrators had been shielded from criminal justice.
“The office could not substantiate allegations that the UK investigative and prosecutorial bodies had engaged in shielding, based on a careful scrutiny of the information before it,” Ms Bensouda said in a statement.
“Having exhausted reasonable lines of enquiry arising from the information available, I therefore determined that the only professionally appropriate decision at this stage is to close the preliminary examination.”
She also noted that while there had been more than ten years of investigations in the UK and thousands of allegations looked into, it had resulted in “not one single case being submitted for prosecution: a result that has deprived the victims of justice”.
The ICC’s decision was slammed by human rights groups.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights said it was “a severe blow to Iraqi torture survivors”.
“Today’s decision by the ICC reinforces longstanding double standards in international justice and shows once again that powerful actors can get away with systematic torture,” general secretary Wolfgang Kaleck said.
