ICC Judge Resigns after ‘Shocking’ US Interference

By Staff, News Agencies

A senior judge resigned from The Hague’s UN International Criminal Court [ICC] citing US threats to judges investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan.

Christoph Flügge worked with the ICC and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY] since 2008.

More recently, he got involved with a preliminary investigations into claims that US military service members and CIA operatives tortured prisoners in Afghanistan.

Flügge told German newspaper Zeit that he handed in his resignation after open threats from US officials, including a speech by hawkish national security adviser John Bolton last September, where Bolton “wished death” on the Court.

“If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the US or investigate an American citizen, he said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted,” Flügge told Zeit.

"The American security adviser held his speech at a time when The Hague was planning preliminary investigations into American soldiers who had been accused of torturing people in Afghanistan,” Flügge explained.

“The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.”