ICC decries latest US sanctions as ‘flagrant attack’ on court’s independence

Trump administration put sanctions on the international criminal court’s president and a senior trial lawyer The international criminal court on Wednesday condemned the latest US sanctions targeting senior ICC staff, including its president, as a “flagrant attack” on the global tribunal’s independence and vowed to continue seeking justice for atrocities around the world. The state department announced on Tuesday that it had hit the ICC president, Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in US jurisdictions or come into contact with the US financial system. The Trump administration has now slapped sanctions on nine of the ICC’s 18 judges, both of its deputy prosecutors, its former chief prosecutor and one other prosecution office staffer, the court said. The US accuses the court of overstepping its mandate by investigating and seeking to prosecute senior military and political officials from countries, such as Israel and the United States, that are not members of the court. In a statement, the court said that when “judicial actors are threatened for applying the law