Marco Rubio targets ICC’s Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, who was investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza
The US has sanctioned 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”.
If their bank has dealings in the USA, they can be de-banked. If they use American credit cards, those can be shut down. Accounts for companies based in the USA can be disabled/deleted or otherwise flagged. They can be blocked from flying on American and allied airlines, or from flying through those countries.
Basically the US government will convince whoever they can to stop dealing with that person, or just to fuck with them in any way they can.
About time some serious non-US alternatives to Visa and MasterCard emerge. I am not sanctioned by anyone, but still hate that I have to use those cards (or PayPal fwiw) all the time.