A senior judge has resigned from the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, after the United States threatened judges investigating alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.
The judge, Christoph FlĂźgge, has worked with the International Criminal Court (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.
FlĂźgge 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 âwished deathâ on the Court.
âIf 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 â and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted,â FlĂźgge told Zeit, in an interview translated by The Guardian.
"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,â FlĂźgge explained. âThe American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.â
Boltonâs speech was delivered in September to the conservative Federalist Society in Washington, DC. It came a year after the ICC began investigating claims that at least 61 detained persons in Afghanistan had been tortured by American troops and another 27 by the CIA at secret prisons in Afghanistan and abroad, according to prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.
Bolton called the investigation âutterly unfoundedâ and âunjustifiable,â and promised to âprotect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.â
âŚmoreâŚ
https://www.rt.com/news/450187-international-court-judge-resigns/
Popstar Ariana Grande has fallen victim to the old trope of badly-translated tattoo fails, after attempting to celebrate the ongoing success of her latest single â7 ringsâ with some commemorative ink.
Despite having âno tears left to cryâ the pop singer would have been âbetter offâ avoiding âbad decisionsâ like a hastily-translated tattoo, which she then posted online to her tens of millions of followers, to immediate backlash that reverberated across Twitter and Instagram.
The vegan pop singer may have thought she was getting the Japanese Kanji characters for â7 ringsâ but instead had the words for âshichirinâ or âsmall charcoal grillâ tattooed on her palm.
In a now-deleted message, Grande admitted her mistake saying: âIndeed, I left out âă¤ăŽćâ which should have gone in between. It hurt like fâk n still looks tight. I wouldnât have lasted one more symbol lmao.â
âAlsoâŚ. huge fan of tiny bbq grills,â she wryly added
https://www.rt.com/news/450233-ariana-grande-tattoo-fail/
âŚmistake or for reals after what we knowâŚ