Episode 18 – Afghanistan and the U.S. war on terror with Katherine Gallagher

Katherine Gallagher came to talk to us just after speaking at the hearings at the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the judges’ decision not to allow a formal investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The investigation has huge political ramifications because it potentially targets U.S. military personnel, as well as Afghan government forces and the Taliban. Prosecutors and lawyers for various victims tried to get the appeals chamber to overturn the decision in which the lower court said that it would not be in the ‘interests of justice’ to pursue the case .

Katherine Gallagher
Katherine Gallagher

Katherine is representing two men currently held at Guantanamo Bay  Sharqawi Al Hajj and Guled Hassan Duran who both passed through Afghanistan on their way to the US base. They were held at various ‘proxy detention sites’ overseen by the CIA and allegedly tortured.

With the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Katherine and her colleagues have been trying all avenues to try and get accountability in various courts for the U.S. torture programme and the establishment of Guantanamo Bay. You can read more from Katherine here on their work and why she considers the ICC case is so important.


Like many of our guests, Katherine doesn’t have much time to read outside her work apart from Buddhist texts, but she recently saw The Report – the Amazon movie on the CIA torture programme – along with her students from CUNY law school and was struck by how important it was to enable younger generations know what happened.The Report

JusticeInfo.net

This podcast has been produced as part of a partnership with JusticeInfo.net, an independent website in French and English covering justice initiatives in countries dealing with serious violence. It is a media outlet of Fondation Hirondelle, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.