After Fatou Bensouda was placed on the US blacklist, the ICC, which is accused of "targeting Americans", condemned an "unacceptable" and "unprecedented" decision.

Two months before the presidential election in the United States, the administration of Donald Trump on Wednesday carried out its threat against one of the bêtes noires of American conservatives by imposing unprecedented economic sanctions on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

The ICC condemned "unacceptable" and "unprecedented" sanctions. "Today we are moving from words to deeds," said US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo, "because the ICC unfortunately continues to target Americans."

U.S. military action in Afghanistan
 

He announced the inclusion on the US blacklist of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, director of the jurisdiction, complementarity and cooperation division of the court based in The Hague, netherlands. Their possible assets in the United States will be frozen and their access to the American financial system will be blocked.

"Any individual or entity that continues to materially assist these individuals is also subject to sanctions," Pompeo warned at a news conference. "We will not tolerate the ICC's illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction."

Already engaged in an unprecedented offensive against the ICC, President Trump in June authorized economic sanctions against its officials to deter the jurisdiction from prosecuting US military personnel for their involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan.

"A staggering perversion of sanctions"
 

Wednesday's announcement is the first embodiment of this threat. Washington had previously banned court officials from entering the United States and revoked Fatou Bensouda's U.S. visa. "These coercive acts, directed against an international judicial institution and its officials, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks on the Court, the international criminal justice system" and "the rule of law in general," the ICC said.

These punitive measures "constitute a staggering perversion of US sanctions, which are supposed to penalize those who violate human rights and kleptocrats, used here to persecute those charged with trying international crimes," said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.

Amnesty International has condemned "yet another brazen attack on international justice." "The White House's actions risk deterring survivors of human rights violations from seeking justice," "which is absurd," said Daniel Balson, one of the organization's leaders. accusing the Trump administration of practicing "harassment and intimidation."

ICC investigations 'politically motivated<br/>  

Washington is not angry about the March appeal decision to allow an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan despite opposition from the Trump administration.

Read about it: Donald Trump shows the fangs and worries in Geneva

The investigation sought by prosecutor Bensouda targets, among other things, abuses allegedly committed by American soldiers in the country where the United States has been waging the longest war in its history since 2001. Allegations of torture have also been made against the CIA.

The judges of the International Criminal Court had initially refused to authorize this investigation after an unprecedented initial threat of sanctions from Washington, which is not a member of this court, unlike Kabul.

The US government's fierce opposition also concerns "politically motivated" investigations against Israel, which could be the subject of war crimes investigations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Court is governed by the Rome Statute, a treaty that entered into force in 2002 and has since been ratified by more than 120 countries. It is one of the main embodiments of multilateralism hated by President Trump and the sovereignist fringe of the American conservative camp.

Read also the opinion: International justice in trompe-l'oeil

"Multilateralism for multilateralism, just to be in a room and chat, it does not bring anything," said Mike Pompeo, who is involved in the electoral campaign of the Republican billionaire for a second term in an unprecedented way for a secretary of state in office.