A former chief court administrator of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the BBC that US air strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats amount to crimes against humanity.
Luis Moreno Ocampo’s comments come as the Trump administration faces questions over attacks in the Caribbean Sea – which have killed 66 people in the past two months.
The administration says it is in formal armed conflict with South American traders who bring drugs to the US.
But Mr Moreno Ocampo said the military campaign fell into the category of a planned, systematic attack against civilians in peacetime.
This, he said, means the campaign falls into the category of crimes against humanity.
“These are criminals, not soldiers. The criminals are civilians,” Mr Moreno Ocampo said of the US allegations against the ship’s crew. “They are criminals, and we should do better to investigate them, prosecute them and stop them, but not kill people,” he told the BBC.
The White House said in response that President Donald Trump is acting in accordance with the laws of armed conflict to protect the US from the ropes off our coast… It emphasized that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the United States and argued that it is a “biased, inflexible entity”.
“It’s funny today the lecture in front of Trump and running cover for the evil narcoterrorists who want to kill the American Secretary Anna Kelly.
Mr Moreno Ocampo, a lawyer from Argentina who helped prosecute the 1985 prosecution of the country’s former military junta, described the attacks during the presentation of the president. Previously, he said, the alleged drug vessels were stopped and the suspects were detained.
“The US has declared that it can kill whoever it wants, and that is a big change because in the past the US, was the guarantor of global values, protect the values of the world, basically,” he said.
“That is a very bad trend for the world,” added Mr Moreno Ocampo, who served as the ICC’s first chief administrator from 2003 to 2012, Oblency Investigations in seven different countries.
The US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the ICC and recently imposed some judges to investigate the US and Israel.
Mr Moreno Ocampo said: “For me, it is very clear. A crime against humanity is a systematic attack against a civilian population, and there are clearly no civilians, even [though] They could be criminals … and obviously systematic, because President Trump said they planned and they organized it, so that’s a duty. “
The Trump Administration sought to justify the ship strikes by saying the US is fighting an armed conflict with drug cartels that are “actions of an armed note against the United States”, according to a confidential note to Congress.
In February, this Latin American organized criminal groups that are foreign terrorist organizations (Naming), Naming Tren de Arawan, Ms-13 in El Salvador and others. The move marks a significant expansion in the use of elective FTOs.
On 2 September, Trump announced the first USirtrike of a ship that he was a “carrying boat with” a lot of drugs “in people. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called the attack a “heinous crime”.
Since then, at least 13 additional strikes have occurred. No evidence has been made public for the drug claims of the above drugs, or which ingredients are said to be involved. The BBC repeatedly asked the Pentagon for the names of those targeted, but none was provided.
Meanwhile, a major US military build-up is taking place in the region, leading the countdown to future ground strikes, although Trump has recently dismissed the possibility of any war unfolding. Maduro saw the action as an attempt to oust him from power. Venezuela plays a minor role in the drug trade in the region.
An FTO Center – of the type used by the Trump administration against drug dealers – does not carry the legal force of the military, according to Brian Finucane, a former mental health adviser to the US State Department. He described the general legal position of the US on the attacks as “completely uncontrolled”.
“You’re left with a situation involving a settled killing outside of armed conflict, and we define that as murder,” he said.
Republicans in Congress largely flocked to Trump’s military move. On Wednesday, in a classified meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio Rubio Briefed Vain lawmakers on the attacks. Afterwards, James Rosch, a Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was “absolutely satisfied” they were satisfied “they were in accordance with the law.
“The administration prevented me and other members who were fully advised … there was good legal justification for what they did,” he said.
“The President really should be congratulated for saving the lives of young Americans,” Ratch added.
But many opposition democrats have challenged the legality of the strikes. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic Leader, said as he left the briefing: “What we have heard is not enough. We need more answers and I am now being asked [the administration] For one all senators on this issue,” he said.
Under the US Constitution, Congress’s War Declaration Power. Many past presidents have ordered military action without the military’s approval, but often provided strong justifications for the President’s powers of attorney.
After a classified seeding of members of the armed Home Service on Thursday, it was said that female officers Sara Jacob did not provide a legal justification for what she called “extrajudicial killings for which we have no evidence”.
He also told lawmakers the strikes targeted the alleged sale of cocaine instead of fentanyl — even FENTanyl, which is associated with drug-related illnesses in the US.