NEW DELHI: According to the Guardian, the former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, reportedly intimidated the head of the Mossad’s international criminal court to persuade her to cut a battle acts investigation.
In the months leading up to her decision to launch a proper investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian lands, Yossi Cohen spoke with Fatou Bensouda, the then-president of the ICC, in a number of covert sessions.
The investigation, which began in 2021, came to an end last week when Bensouda’s son Karim Khan announced his intention to seek an arrest permit for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the government’s role in the Gaza conflict.
You ought to assist us and allow us to look after you. According to the accounts shared by ICC officials, Cohen reportedly told Bensouda that “you do n’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
Calling Cohen’s work as that of using “despicable methods” and” stalking”, two ICC officials said that the Mossad was even interested in Bensouda’s family members and got records of secret recordings of her father.
Responding to these claims, a representative for Israel’s prime minister’s office told the Guardian,” The inquiries forwarded to us are overflowing with many fake and false claims meant to hurt the state of Israel”.
These revelations came inas the present chief counsel, Khan, warned in recent days that he will not bother to sue “attempts to restrict, intimidate, or poorly effect” ICC staff.
According to legal professionals and former ICC officials, Bensouda’s attempts to intimidate or place pressure on by the Mossad does fall under content 70 of the Rome act, the treaty that established the court, which prohibits the Mossad from doing so.
