UN expert Richard Bennett calls Taliban arrest warrants ‘very important’
Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur for Afghanistan, has described the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for a number of Taliban administration officials as “very important,” saying its significance goes beyond the warrants themselves.
Bennett wrote on X late Monday, 13 October, that the key part of the decision is the court’s analysis of “persecution on gender grounds” and its assessment of that in relation to the Taliban administration’s policies and practices.
His remarks came after the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced that, at the request of its prosecutor, it had issued arrest warrants for Habibullah Agha, the Taliban administration’s education minister, and Nada Mohammad Nadim, the Taliban administration’s higher education minister.
In response, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the administration does not recognize the International Criminal Court.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague, investigates cases involving serious international crimes, and Afghanistan has been one of the court’s main areas of focus in recent years.
