Dec 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the U.S. was sanctioning two judges of the International Criminal Court for targeting Israel, raising the number of senior court officials under U.S. sanctions to 11.
"Today, I am designating two International Criminal Court (ICC) judges, Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia, pursuant to Executive Order 14203," Rubio said in a statement, referring to an order President Donald Trump signed in February
sanctioning the ICC.
"These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel's consent," he said.
In his statement Rubio refers to the magistrates' involvement in voting to reject one of several Israeli legal challenges against the ICC probe into its conduct of the Gaza war earlier this week. The judges named were part of a panel that refused to overturn a lower court decision that the prosecution's investigation into alleged crimes under its jurisdiction could include events following the attack on Israel by militant Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The ICC said it deplored the new round of sanctions, which is the fourth round of measures this year .
"These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution," it said in a statement, adding the measures put the international legal order at risk.
The United States and Israel are not members of the ICC, but the Palestinian territories were admitted as a member state in 2015. Last year, the court issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using starvation as a weapon of war, committed in Gaza.
The U.S. sanctions imposed in February included freezing any U.S. assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya: Editing by Caitlin Webber and Hugh Lawson)
