ICC Drops Probe of Alleged UK Solders’ War Crimes in Iraq

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said she would drop a preliminary investigation into alleged war crimes by British troops in Iraq. The report released on Wednesday by Fatou Bensouda said that the United Kingdom had held a credible investigation of the allegations, though it dropped all but one of the complaints and it has not led to any prosecutions. This, she said, deprives the victims of justice, but the ICC only intervenes when a country is unwilling to take action and intervene itself and thus closed the case. She said that her office did, however, find a “reasonable basis” to believe that the British soldiers in Iraq in 2003 committed atrocities, such as the murder of at least seven detained Iraqis, as well as torture and rape. The ICC began the preliminary investigation in 2014. There are some 3,400 allegations of crimes committed by British forces beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq through 2009.