THE president of the International Criminal Court lashed out yesterday at the United States and Russia for interfering with its investigations, calling threats and attacks on the court “appalling.”

“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions by another permanent member of the security council as if it was a terrorist organisation,” Judge Tomoko Akane, in her address to the institution’s annual meeting, which opened yesterday in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Judge Akane was referring to remarks made by US Senator Lindsey Graham, whose Republican party will control both branches of Congress in January, and who called the court a “dangerous joke” and urged Congress to sanction its prosecutor. 

Senator Graham told Fox News: “To any ally — Canada, Britain, Germany, France — if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.”

Mr Graham was angered by an announcement last month that judges had granted a request from the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war on the Palestinians in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden described the warrants for Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant as “outrageous,” in stark contrast to his robust backing of an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin last year.

Mr Biden called the warrant for Mr Putin “justified” and said the Russian president had committed war crimes.

During his last term as US president, Donald Trump sanctioned the court’s previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, with a travel ban and asset freeze for investigating US troops and intelligence officials in Afghanistan.

The US is not an ICC member country.

Judge Akane also had harsh words for Russia. “Several elected officials are being subjected to arrest warrants from a permanent member of the security council,” she said. 

Moscow issued warrants for Mr Khan and others in response to the investigation into Mr Putin.