The United States has imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, over her investigation into whether American forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
Mr Pompeo added on Wednesday that Mr Phakiso Mochochoko, head of the ICC's Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, had also been blacklisted under sanctions authorised by President Donald Trump in June that allow for asset freezes and travel bans.
He also said that individuals and entities that continue to materially support Ms Bensouda and Mr Mochochoko would risk exposure to sanctions as well.
The ICC dismissed the measures as "another attempt to interfere with the court's judicial and prosecutorial independence".
"These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks against the court, the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, and the rule of law more generally," it said in a rare joint statement on behalf of the entire ICC.
The State Department also restricted the issuance of visas for individuals that Mr Pompeo said were involved in the court's efforts to investigate US personnel.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was concerned by Mr Pompeo's announcement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told newsmen.
Mr Dujarric said "we trust that any restriction taken against individuals will be implemented consistently" with a decades-old US deal with the UN to host the world body's headquarters in New York.
Ms Bensouda was given the go-ahead by the court in March to investigate whether war crimes were committed in Afghanistan by the Taleban, Afghan military and US forces.
The US revoked her entry visa the previous year over the possible Afghanistan inquiry. But under an agreement between the UN and Washington, she was still able to regularly travel to New York to brief the UN Security Council on cases it had referred to the court in The Hague.
Mr Richard Dicker, Human Rights Watch international justice director, said: "The Trump administration has twisted these sanctions to obstruct justice, not only for certain war crimes victims, but for atrocity victims anywhere looking to the International Criminal Court for justice," he said.
REUTERS