Incorrect. An officer cannot make an arrest for reasonable suspicion, but can make an investigatory stop based on that suspicion. For an arrest, you need probable cause, which requires a greater evidentiary threshold.


Correct. That means there would have to be evidence that the pilot intended to kill civilians as opposed to a legitimate military objective. You haven't provided any evidence such intent existed.

To establish a probable cause of intent in this case, you would have to ignore that the pilot was following direction and information indicating he was targeting a military objective with the intent of subduing enemy forces within ...

To establish reasonable cause of intent you would have to have enough facts at hand to overcome a reasonable person's belief that this was a mistake vs an intentional attack targeting civilians ...


Transfer of Malice requires that there be a criminal act being committed in the first place. In active combat, attempting/intending to kill the enemy is not itself a criminal act. There is no crime able to transfer to any civilians that may have been killed/injured ...

It' a nice try, but:

Wartime
A pilot intends to bomb the enemy
The bomb kills civilians instead/as well
Therefore (transfer of malice), the pilot intended to kill civilians
Therefore the pilot is guilty of genocide

probably wouldn't make it past a prosecutor's desk much less a pre-trial hearing ...

Well probable cause means reasonable belief - I'd accept your distinction between 'belief' and 'suspicion' in the US although it has no significance in international law.


No, you're confusing war crimes where military objectives are relevant and genocide and crimes against humanity where they're not.


Personally I don't need the evidence - the prosecutor does.


I don't agree with that but in any event probable cause is US law and not a requirement for arrest in Afghanistan or internationally.


Intent doesn't need a cause it's just a state of mind.


Firing rockets and flesh-eating chemical white phosphorus at human beings in a grossly disproportionate use of force breaks so many provisions of international law it would be difficult to list them all. So yes the principle of transferred malice applies.


First of all there are two routes to liability of which transferred malice is only one. The first is intent to kill founded on the virtual certainty and knowledge thereof that civilians would be killed by rocket fire aimed at residential homes.

The transferred malice route is not quite how you framed it but:

Wartime irrelevant for genocide and crimes against humanity
A pilot intends to bomb (the enemy) human beings
The bomb kills (civilians instead/as well) different human beings
Therefore the pilot intended to kill (civilians) the victims
Therefore the pilot is guilty of genocide
And crimes against humanity.

km

Your wrong , probable cause is based on week evidence but its still evidence of sorts . You cannot arrest anyone here based on suspicion alone - You may hold someone for questioning with their attorney present but you cannot arrest them



I already provided links did you read them even the Aljazeera link concurs

Not true - The home turned into a military target once operations are conducted from the home , It is no longer a private residence

So by your understanding is that the Taliban needs to do is run into a private residence and they now become safe and secure and can still shoot at police and Afghan forces - LOL

Well you started off by demanding an arrest under Article 7, "Crimes Against Humanity"; then you made several references to Article 8 "War Crimes" under which you believed the pilot should be arrested and prosecuted, and which I have been using as the basis of that discussion ... now, apparently you wish to switch to "Genocide", Article 6 ...

So lets try this:

For Article 6, Genocide, there has to be evidence of large-scale, systematic efforts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" ...

So far, you haven't provided any evidence of a large-scale effort with such intent ... the mere fact that a relatively large number of civilians may have been killed does not in and of itself go to intent -- although it may raise a reasonable suspicion to initiate investigations ...

For Article 7, Crimes Against Humanity, there again has to be evidence of "multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack" ... again, you have yet to provide evidence that such a policy exists and that this incident was a furtherance of that policy ...

For Article 8, War Crimes, there are numerous exceptions for conduct against a legitimate military target -- so you'd have to prove intent to go beyond military advantage and intentionally put civilian lives at disproportionate risk. You might have a cause for investigation on the disproportionate aspect (although the use of phosphor in this incident is news to me -- do you have a link indicating this is the case?), but I doubt there would be cause to arrest a specific individual right off the bat ...

Which brings us to:


Then who are you to demand anybody's arrest? And if you have no evidence to back up those demands, why should anybody listen to you?

---


As I said -- good luck getting that through to a hearing much less to court ...

As I said to six probable cause in the US requires reasonable belief. Internationally no distinction is drawn between reasonable belief and reasonable suspicion so the pilots can be arrested on that ground. Proof of guilt is not required, of course, until the matter gets to court.


Your links are irrelevant as to why I mentioned my links - namely because you asked for the "facts" I was relying on in saying that US pilots had killed civilians.

km

It's not switching because all three articles are arguable on the facts and the same event can invoke more than one article at the same time.


Evidence is for the court. What I've done is refer to reports of large numbers of civilians being killed on successive occasions through the organised JTAC system.


As I've said before reasonable belief that a person has committed an offence is sufficient for arrest with a view to prosecution at the ICC.


Evidence is for the court. What I've done is refer to reports that raise a reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify arrest.


linky <---.


I could equally ask who are you to insist on suspects not being arrested.


Evidence is for the court - why would I have any evidence? What I have done though is provide several links that refer to credible accounts of eye-witnesses sufficient to justify arrest of the culprits on reasonable suspicion of an offence.

km

To have reasonable Belief you must have some evidence - Get It

Problem is, Taliban/insurgent use of white phosphorus in IEDs and captured weapons caches containing WP is documented back as far as 2003 and might actually cast some doubt on his stance.

Well, it was I who called for the pilots to be arrested on a reasonable belief. You demanded proof of guilt which is not required. As I said before reasonable suspicion that the pilots committed an offence is sufficient for their arrest and can be based on information which is inadmissible as evidence.

km