The United States has announced sanctions against the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a prosecutor who was investigating crimes committed by Israel during its war on Gaza. This was stated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as reported by infohub.kz.
In his statement, Rubio called the Hague-based ICC a "corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate." He said that Tomoko Akane of Japan, the ICC president, and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, a senior ICC trial lawyer, had "directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction."
The US had previously sanctioned Karim Khan, an ICC prosecutor, who had investigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes during the Gaza war. In 2025, Donald Trump sanctioned the court, stating in an executive order that it had "engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel."
Rubio did not specify which efforts the two ICC officials had engaged in, but Israeli media have reported that Seye is overseeing the investigation into Israeli funding for illegal settlements and the disbursal of weapons to settlers in the West Bank. Israeli officials warned local media in May that the ICC may seek five more arrest warrants for ministers and senior military officials involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.