Germany respects the “independence” of the International Criminal Court, Berlin declared after the tribunal’s chief prosecutor on Monday announced he would be seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“The International Criminal Court is a fundamental achievement of the international community that Germany has always supported. Germany respects its independence and the conduct of proceedings just as it does for all other international courts,” Berlin’s Federal Foreign Office stated.
Germany noted, however, that “the simultaneous applications for arrest warrants for the Hamas leadership on the one hand and the two Israeli officials on the other have resulted in an incorrect implication of equivalence.”
“The Court will have a host of difficult questions to answer here, including in particular the question as to its jurisdiction and the complementarity of investigations carried out by affected states governed by the rule of law, which include Israel,” added the missive.
On Monday night, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell reiterated Brussels’s view that “all states that have ratified the ICC statutes are bound to execute the Court’s decisions.
“I take note of the decision of the ICC Prosecutor to apply for warrants of arrest before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant,” tweeted the top E.U. diplomat.
“The mandate of the ICC, as an independent international institution, is to prosecute the most serious crimes under international law,” he said.
The ICC prosecutor’s charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” Karim Khan told CNN on Monday.
Charges against Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, “political” leader Ismail Haniyeh and terror chief Mohammed Deif include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention,” Khan said.
