ICC prosecutor sees ‘no real effort’ by Israel to investigate alleged war crimes in Gaza Reuters
Author: Anthony Deutsch
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan defended his decision to bring war crimes charges against Israel’s prime minister, saying Israel had made “no real effort” to investigate the allegations itself.
In an interview with Reuters, he stood by his decision regarding the arrest warrant despite last week’s vote by the US House of Representatives to sanction the ICC in protest, a move he described as “unwelcome and undesirable”.
ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Khan’s remarks.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes. The United States, Israel’s main ally, is also not a member of the ICC and Washington criticized the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
“We are here as a court of last resort and … as we speak right now, we have not seen any real effort by the State of Israel to take action that would satisfy established case law, which is investigations of the same suspect for the same conduct,” Khan said. for Reuters.
“That can change and I hope it will,” he said in an interview on Thursday, a day after Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas reached a cease-fire deal in Gaza.
The Israeli investigation could have led to the case being returned to Israeli courts under so-called complementary principles. Israel can still demonstrate its willingness to investigate, even after warrants are issued, he said.
The ICC, with 125 member states, is the world’s permanent court for prosecuting individuals for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression.
Khan said that Israel has very good legal expertise.
But, he said, “the question is, have these judges, have these prosecutors, have these legal instruments been used to properly investigate the allegations that we’ve seen in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in the State of Palestine? And I think the answer to that was ‘no ‘.”
TRUMP’S SOON RETURN
The passage of the “Illegitimate Confrontation Act” in the US House of Representatives on January 9 underscored the strong support for the Israeli government among President-elect Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans.
The ICC said it noted the bill with concern and warned that it could deprive victims of crime of justice and hope.
The first Trump administration imposed sanctions on the ICC in 2020 over investigations into war crimes in Afghanistan, including allegations of torture against American citizens. Those sanctions were lifted during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Five years ago, then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other staff had their credit cards and bank accounts frozen and were barred from traveling to the US. Any further US sanctions under Trump are widely expected to be tougher and more widespread.
The ICC, established in 1998, was supposed to take over the work of ad hoc courts that conducted war crimes trials based on the legal principles established during the Nazi trials at Nuremberg after World War II.
“Of course it is undesirable and undesirable that an institution that is a child of Nuremberg … is threatened with sanctions. It should make people pay attention because this court is not owned by prosecutors or judges. We have 125 countries,” Khan said.
It is “a matter that should concern all people of conscience,” he said, declining to discuss further what the sanctions might mean for the court.
