International Criminal Court blasts new US sanctions

(FILES) This photograph taken on March 14, 2025 shows the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Hungary's government announced on April 3, 2025 that it would withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), just before Prime Minister Viktor Orban was to receive his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu despite an ICC arrest warrant against him. Orban extended an invitation to Netanyahu last November, saying Hungary would not execute the warrant, a day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant against the Israeli premier over alleged war crimes in Gaza. (Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP)

The International Criminal Court on Wednesday denounced new US sanctions against two more of its judges and two prosecutors, calling them a “flagrant attack” on its independence.

The four include Judge Nicolas Guillou of France, who is presiding over a case in which an arrest warrant was issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Canadian judge Kimberly Prost and deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal were also hit.

Prost was involved in a case that authorised an investigation into alleged crimes committed during the war in Afghanistan, including by US forces.

“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution,” the court said in a statement.

The ICC said it stood “firmly behind its personnel and victims of unimaginable atrocities”.

It said it would “continue fulfilling its mandates, undeterred” and “without regard to any restriction, pressure or threat”.

Four other judges and the court’s prosecutor had already been placed under sanctions.

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