Trump OKs Sanctions Against International Tribunal Employees
By Staff, Agencies
US President Donald Trump Thursday authorized economic and travel sanctions against the International Criminal Court [ICC] workers investigating American troops and intelligence officials and those of allied nations for possible war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Trump's executive order was his administration’s latest attack against international organizations, treaties and agreements that don’t hew to US policies. The order would block the financial assets of court employees and bar them and their immediate relatives from entering the United States.
While the Zionist entity welcomed the move, there were expressions of concern and condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union and human rights groups.
The Hague-based court was created in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and crimes of humanity and genocide in places where perpetrators might not otherwise face justice. The court has 123 state parties that recognize its jurisdiction. The US has never been an ICC member.
Relatively, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the tribunal as a "kangaroo court" that has been unsuccessful and inefficient in its mandate to prosecute war crimes.
He said that the US would punish the ICC employees for any investigation or prosecution of Americans in Afghanistan and added that they could also be banned for prosecuting ‘Israelis’ for alleged abuses against Palestinians.
"We cannot allow ICC officials and their families to come to the United States to shop and travel and otherwise enjoy American freedoms as these same officials seek to prosecute the defender of those very freedoms," Pompeo claimed.
Pompeo's comments were echoed by war secretary Mark Esper, Attorney General William Barr and national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who spoke at a State Department announcement of the new measures.
Barr announced that the US would investigate possible corruption within the ICC hierarchy that he said raised suspicions that Russia and other adversaries could be interfering in the investigatory process.
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