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ICC prosecutor faces demand for action against Israeli leaders & Russian attack over Putin warrant

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor faced demands for speedy action against Israeli leaders and a blistering Russian attack over the ICC’s arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Quick Read

  • ICC Faces Pressure on Israeli Actions and Russian Criticism: The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan is under intense pressure to act against Israeli leaders for alleged crimes in Gaza, while simultaneously facing harsh criticism from Russia over an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin related to Ukraine.
  • Libya Advocates for ICC Focus on Gaza: Libya’s U.N. ambassador urged the ICC to prioritize investigations into Israeli actions in Gaza, labeling them as potential genocide and war crimes.
  • Debate Over ICC’s Neutrality and Influence: The discussions at the U.N. highlighted concerns about the ICC’s independence, with accusations of it being influenced by political interests, particularly from Western countries.
  • Russian Condemnation of ICC: Russia dismissed the ICC as a politicized institution following the arrest warrant against Putin, challenging its credibility and accusing it of being a puppet of the West.
  • U.S. Congressional Actions Against the ICC: A new U.S. bill aims to impose sanctions on ICC officials investigating the United States or its allies, reflecting ongoing tensions between the ICC and major global powers.
  • Calls for Justice Amidst Ongoing Conflict: The global community, including Algeria’s deputy U.N. ambassador, called on the ICC to demonstrate its effectiveness and impartiality in handling cases related to Palestine, stressing the need for a fair legal process that is not swayed by external pressures.
  • ICC’s Commitment to Justice: Despite the criticisms and challenges, Prosecutor Karim Khan reaffirmed the ICC’s commitment to upholding justice with integrity and independence across various global crises, including those in Gaza, Ukraine, Libya, and Myanmar.

The Associated Press has the story:

ICC prosecutor faces demand for action against Israeli leaders & Russian attack over Putin warrant

Newslooks- UNITED NATIONS (AP) —

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor faced demands for speedy action against Israeli leaders and a blistering Russian attack over the ICC’s arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Karim Khan responded by telling the U.N. Security Council that he will not be swayed or intimidated as his team investigates possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza and the Palestinian territories as well as in Ukraine.

War
FILE – Karim Ahmed Khan, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor, speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Justice in the Khartoum, Sudan, Aug. 12, 2021. Representatives of a group of nations working together to investigate war crimes committed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are meeting Tuesday, May 31, 2022 in The Hague amid ongoing calls for those responsible for atrocities to be brought to justice. Tuesday’s coordination meeting at the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, of members of a Joint Investigation Team and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian towns with heavy artillery.(AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

Libya’s U.N. ambassador, Taher El-Sonni, told Khan that if the Libyan cases the ICC is investigating are so complex that they won’t be completed until the end of 2025, he should allocate the court’s efforts to the war in Gaza.

El-Sonni claimed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being perpetrated by Israeli forces.

Exterior view of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Israeli officials sound increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court could issue arrest warrants for the country’s leaders more than six months into the Israel-Hamas war. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

The world expects the ICC “to be courageous and to issue arrest warrants against officials of the Israeli regime who have repeated again and again that they want to commit genocidal actions against Palestinians,” El-Sonni said.

“What are you waiting for, Mr. Khan?,” he added. “Don’t you see the threats against civilians, the potential threats against civilians in Rafah and the massacre that would happen at any time?”

El-Sonni was referring to the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where 1.2 million Palestinians had fled seeking safety. The U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that nearly 450,000 have fled Rafah in the past week, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated that there is no safe place anywhere in Gaza.

“This is the actual test of the ICC,” El-Sonni said. “Is the ICC politicized or is it independent and neutral?”

FILE – Vassily Nebenzia, permanent representative of Russia to the United Nations, speaks during a meeting of the UN Security Council, March 29, 2022, at United Nations headquarters. Russia and the U.S. clashed in the U.N. on Friday, March 31, over Moscow’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Nebenzia said Moscow is not transferring nuclear weapons but “operational tactical missile complexes,” which will be under Russian control. He insisted this was not in violation of Moscow’s international obligations. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the ICC a politicized “puppet body” controlled by the West that “has absolutely nothing to do with justice.”

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in March 2023, accusing the Russian president of personal responsibility for the abduction of children from Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

Two months later, Russia issued an arrest warrant for Khan. The ICC called that warrant “unacceptable” and said the court “will remain undeterred in the conduct of its lawful mandate to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.”

Nebenzia also accused the ICC of accomplishing nothing since it began a preliminary examination of the situation in the Palestinian territories in 2015 and a formal investigation in 2021.

“In this regard, one wonders if the effectiveness of the ICC on this track has been affected by the fact that a new bipartisan bill has been submitted to the U.S. Congress to sanction ICC officials involved in investigating not only the U.S. but its allies,” he told the Security Council.

Last week, two Republican congressmen introduced the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act” to impose sanctions on ICC officials that go after the United States or its allies including Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel’s wars and victims of attacks at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery Monday, May 13, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP)

They cited reports the ICC is poised to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-ranking Israeli officials for their military offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw about 250 people taken hostage. The act’s supporters said that if the ICC was a legitimate tribunal it should have issued arrest warrants for Hamas leaders.

Israel’s military retaliation, now in its eighth month, has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children according to Gaza health officials, and it has sparked worldwide protests.

Algeria’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Nacim Gaouaoui, expressed hope the ICC will take “a serious approach” to its Palestinian investigations and “demonstrate that it is not a tool used by some members of the international community to threaten whoever they want, whenever they want.”

Palestinians pray by the bodies of people killed during Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, next to the morgue in Deir al Balah, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Khan said he wanted to assure Russia’s ambassador that “we will not be swayed, whether it’s by warrants for my arrest or the arrest of elected officials of the court by the Russian Federation, or whether it’s by other elected officials in any other jurisdiction.”

Khan said the ICC endeavors to be “deaf to the noise” and this should be a time “for the law to be allowed to breathe,” whether dealing with world crises like Ukraine, Gaza and the Palestinians, Libya or the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

“We have a duty to stand up for justice, to stand up for victims,” Khan said. “We will stand up and apply the law with integrity, with independence.”

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