In an exclusive revelation by Middle East Eye (MEE), the International Criminal Court (ICC) approved two confidential arrest warrants last September 2025 for senior Taliban figures, charging them with crimes against humanity through gender and political persecution. This historic development comes two months after the same three-judge panel publicly issued identical charges against Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Afghanistan’s de facto chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani.
Unlike the two public warrants, the sealed documents cover newly uncovered evidence and identify additional alleged victims that were not included in the initial public filings. All four Taliban leaders are facing accusations related to crimes the group is alleged to have committed while acting as Afghanistan’s de facto governing authority between August 15, 2021, and at least January 20, 2025. MEE has chosen not to disclose the names of the two individuals named in the secret warrants to preserve the confidentiality of ongoing court proceedings.
This set of Taliban-related charges marks an unprecedented milestone in international law: it is the first time any international tribunal, including the ICC, has formally recognized LGBTQ+ individuals as victims of systematic persecution. The charge of gender-based persecution itself remains extremely rare in international legal practice, with no prior convictions ever secured. The ICC has only previously brought this charge once in the Al Hassan case, which never resulted in a conviction.
Court and prosecution insiders familiar with the proceedings told MEE that ICC leadership made the deliberate choice to keep the two additional warrants sealed out of explicit concern over anticipated pushback from the United States, which has a long history of opposing ICC investigations that target actors Washington considers strategically important. That concern proved well-founded: just one month after the public warrants for Akhundzada and Haqqani were released, the U.S. imposed targeted sanctions on then-ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, the lead official behind the investigation.
Multiple court staff members also reported widespread internal anxiety over potential personal sanctions, particularly for employees with family ties to the U.S., who feared penalties would block them from visiting loved ones. Some team members even declined to have their names associated with the warrant applications. Since April 2025, ICC judges have formally ordered the prosecutor’s office to keep all future arrest warrant requests confidential, a restriction that remains in place today. When reached for comment by MEE on multiple occasions, the ICC prosecutor’s office declined to provide any statement, referencing amended court rules that mandate secrecy for new court filings.
The warrants were first submitted to the court in January 2025, just weeks after Donald Trump’s second inauguration as U.S. president. The four applications were developed under the leadership of former prosecutor Karim Khan and deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, who oversees the ICC’s Afghanistan investigation, with strategic guidance from special adviser Lisa Davis, the author of the court’s official policy on gender-based crimes. While it remains unconfirmed whether the two secret warrants were submitted on the same day as the public filings, Khan publicly noted during the January 23 announcement of the public warrants that additional applications would be coming “soon.” Insiders confirmed to MEE that the two confidential requests were already “almost ready” for submission on that date.
Since February 2025, the U.S. has levied retaliatory financial and visa sanctions against multiple ICC officials connected to both the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations, justifying the measures on the grounds that the court targets U.S. nationals and U.S. allies. Karim Khan became the first sanctioned official, and was controversially removed from office by ICC member states last month following an 18-month misconduct investigation. Eight additional ICC judges have also been sanctioned, including three members of the 2020 Appeals Chamber that originally authorized the full Afghanistan investigation: Kimberly Prost, Solomy Bossa, and Luz Ibanez.
Notably, the sanctions were imposed despite a 2021 decision by Khan to deprioritize the portion of the Afghanistan investigation focused on U.S. military and CIA personnel, as well as forces of the former Afghan government, to reallocate resources to investigating crimes by the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K). Even with this shift, successive U.S. administrations—including that of Joe Biden—have opposed the ICC’s prosecution of Taliban leaders for pragmatic geopolitical reasons. The primary factor is that the Taliban remains Afghanistan’s de facto ruling authority, requiring ongoing diplomatic engagement with its senior members. Washington also fears that increased pressure on the Taliban could lead to the collapse of its government, creating a power vacuum that would be filled by more extremist groups such as IS-K.
The ICC’s Afghanistan investigation has a long, complicated history stretching back to 2017, when then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda first requested judicial authorization to open an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan since 2003, spanning actions by Taliban, IS-K, Afghan government, and U.S. forces. The request was initially rejected by a pre-trial chamber in 2019, but the Appeals Chamber overturned that ruling in March 2020 and cleared the investigation to move forward. Bensouda was sanctioned by the U.S. government just months later for her efforts to bring U.S. nationals under the court’s jurisdiction.
The investigation was suspended later in 2020 following a request for deferral from the then-Afghan government, and did not resume work until late 2022, with that decision upheld on appeal in April 2023. In November 2024, six countries—Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Luxembourg, and Mexico—jointly submitted a referral to the ICC, adding new allegations of systematic crimes against women and girls committed after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, and asking that these claims be integrated into the existing Afghanistan investigation. Just weeks later, in January 2025, Khan submitted the arrest warrant applications, arguing that the gender persecution allegations already fell within the scope of the 2020 investigation authorization.
Last week, MEE revealed that ICC judges have formally asked the prosecutor’s office to open a standalone investigation into Taliban gender persecution, separating this probe from the original Afghanistan war crimes investigation that originally included claims against U.S. nationals. If the prosecutor’s office moves forward with this separation, it is widely expected to spark questions over whether the court is seeking to de-escalate tensions with Washington by explicitly signaling it will no longer pursue allegations against U.S. forces and their Afghan allies. Karim Khan’s two deputies, both of whom are currently under U.S. sanctions, will lead the office until a new permanent prosecutor is selected.