EMHIPresume

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague has lost access to his email and his bank accounts have been frozen because of US sanctions, news agency AP reported on Thursday.

The agency said the court’s US staff have also been told they could be arrested if they travel back home, and that some non-governmental agencies have stopped working with the ICC because of the risk.

Legislation adopted by the US in January imposed sanctions on court staff if Americans and officials from allied countries, including Israel, are investigated. The US is not a member of the court.

The sanctions, the legislation said, would also apply to “anyone who has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of any effort by the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person”.

According to AP, the order bans Khan and other non-Americans among the ICC’s 900 staff members from entering the US and threatens any person, institution or company with fines and prison time if they provide Khan with “financial, material, or technological support.”

US president Donald Trump ordered the sanctions after a panel of ICC judges in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, saying they may have committed war crimes.

However the sanctions are also now impacting on other investigations, court officials told AP.

According to an analysis by the Volkskrant, the Netherlands runs a particular risk, given that it hosts the ICC and that everyone who has been arrested ends up on Dutch soil.

Although detention is up to the court, everything between Schiphol airport and the 12 ICC cells at Scheveningen jail is the responsibility of the Netherlands. The Netherlands also provides operational support, including security and access to suspects and witnesses.

The ICC and Khan declined to comment on the claims, AP said.

The previous Trump administration sanctioned two staff members at the court in 2020 over the investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan. Those targeted the then-chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her deputies.

South Africa has warned that further attacks against its peacekeeping forces by Rwandan-backed rebels would be a “declaration of war”, as regional tensions spiralled following a major new offensive in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Austrian energy company said it had expected this development and that the country will continue to get gas through import from Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.