The International Criminal Court on Wednesday condemned a decision by the Trump administration to impose further sanctions on its judges in retaliation for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and investigating the U.S. military.
In the latest of a series of measures against the world’s highest criminal court, the State Department on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting two of the court’s 18 judges as well as two prosecutors, for what it called “transgressions against the United States and Israel.” The sanctions freeze any assets that the judges and prosecutors hold in the United States.
The I.C.C. said the sanctions were a “flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution” that operates under the mandate of 125 countries. France’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the sanctions should be withdrawn.
Last year, the court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip. At the time, Mr. Netanyahu’s office rejected what it called “absurd and false accusations.”
The State Department said it had targeted Nicolas Guillou of France, an I.C.C. judge, for his role in issuing the arrest warrants, and Kimberly Prost of Canada, another judge, for her role in authorizing an investigation into U.S. military personnel at secret C.I.A. sites in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
The United States and Israel are not members of the court and have long chafed at its efforts to prosecute officials in their governments or militaries. Though the two Israeli leaders are unlikely to stand trial any time soon, the I.C.C.’s arrest warrants dealt a significant blow to the Israeli government’s global standing.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, welcomed the latest sanctions on Wednesday. He said in a statement on social media that they sent a message that the United States and Israel would not bow to what he called the court’s “shamelessly corrupt political persecution.”
This is not the first time the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on the I.C.C. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions in June on four judges for issuing the arrest warrants against the Israeli officials. Sanctions were also imposed on the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February, and on Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, in July.
President Trump signed an executive order in February that said that the I.C.C. had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” over the arrest warrants and said that the court had no jurisdiction over either country, given that they are not parties to the Rome Statute, which underpins the court, or members of it. A federal judge found in July that the executive order in February is most likely a violation of the First Amendment.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a London-based reporter on the Live team at The Times, which covers breaking and developing news.
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