cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50832517

Marco Rubio targets ICC’s Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, who was investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza

The US has sanctioned the president of the international criminal court (ICC) and a prosecutor tasked with investigating crimes committed by Israel during its war on Gaza.

The new sanctions designations were unveiled by Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, who called the Hague-based ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate”, in a statement.

Rubio announced that the US would sanction Tomoko Akane of Japan, the ICC president, and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, an ICC senior trial lawyer, because they had “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”.

US Imposes Sanctions on President of International Criminal Court

The United States has imposed new sanctions on two officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. One is the court’s president, Japanese judge Tomoko Akane. The other is Senegalese Abdoulaye Seye, a member of the prosecution team.
“These individuals are directly involved in attempts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute officials from countries that do not submit to the court’s jurisdiction,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Sanctions Target Financial Access

The sanctions mean Akane and Seye will lose access to any US-based bank accounts they may hold. More significantly, they will be cut off from the US financial system, which is used by nearly all internationally operating banks.

US Rejects ICC Authority

(but ICC is a direct consequence from the lessons we learned in the Nuremberg trials after world war 2. Does america not care about world wars and the lessons in how to prevent them anymore? wtf)
The US does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. The country fears that one day, American military personnel or allies could be charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity—a scenario that is not unrealistic. In 2016, the ICC launched an investigation into possible war crimes by US military personnel, the CIA, the Taliban, and other armed groups in Afghanistan. That investigation was dropped in 2019 after judges concluded it would not succeed due to lack of cooperation.

Netanyahu and Gallant Trigger Escalation

The Trump administration’s aggressive stance follows the ICC’s 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—both US allies. The court seeks to prosecute them for war crimes and crimes against humanity related to their roles in the Gaza war. Seye was part of the prosecution team that issued these arrest warrants. Last year, shortly after taking office, Trump announced sanctions against individuals and entities assisting the ICC in investigations involving US citizens or their allies. One of those sanctioned was Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, who lost access to his US bank accounts and Microsoft email. Last month, Secretary Rubio warned that this was only the beginning. If necessary, he said in The Wall Street Journal, the US would dismantle the ICC “brick by brick.”

Translated article: https://nos.nl/...