US sanctions international criminal court president and prosecutor

Marco Rubio announced measures against Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, who was investigating Israel’s war crimes in Gaza

The US will sanction the president of the international criminal court (ICC) and a prosecutor tasked with investigating crimes committed by Israel during its war on Gaza.

The new sanctions designations were unveiled by Marco Rubio , the US secretary of state, who called the Hague-based ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate”, in a statement.

Rubio announced that the US would sanction Tomoko Akane of Japan, the ICC president, and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, an ICC senior trial lawyer, because they 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. Donald Trump in 2025 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 say specifically 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.