Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), says some elected leaders told him that the ICC was built for Africa and “thugs like Vladimir Putin”, the Russian president.

The ICC is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression.

The court’s member states are obliged to immediately arrest the wanted person if on their territory.

Israel and the US, the Jewish nation’s biggest ally, are not members of the ICC.

Khan did not specify which elected leader or leaders he was referring to, but expressed his disapproval at apparent threats from the US over the ICC’s intention to seek arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel.

The ICC is also asking for an arrest warrant for Yoav Gallant, Israeli defence minister. Both men have been accused of war crimes.

The court’s decision to prosecute Israeli authorities has been met with ire from Israel and the US.

“Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States,” a letter signed by some senators reads.

“You have been warned.”

US President Joe Biden had also described the allegations against Israel as “outrageous”.

“Let me be clear, we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders,” Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House on Monday.

“There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”

‘IT’S NOT GENOCIDE’

In a CNN interview on Monday, Khan described the letter as a threat, maintaining that the ICC’s values are synonymous with American beliefs.

“And, of course, I’ve had some elected leaders speak to me and be very blunt. ‘This court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin,’ was what one senior leader told me,” Khan said, adding that “we don’t view it like that”.

“We are not going to be swayed by the different types of threats, some of which are public and some maybe are not,” he added.

The ICC is also seeking warrants for three Hamas chiefs — Yahya Sinwar, leader of the Palestinian militant group; Mohammed Al-Masri, leader of the Al Qassem Brigades; and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.

Charges against the Hamas leaders include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention”.

Netanyahu and Gallant are being charged for “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict”.

All charges are in relation to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Israel is also facing a separate charge of alleged genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as brought forward by South Africa.

Biden said Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.

“Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), what’s happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that,” Biden added.

Over 40 persons have been reportedly killed by bandits in Zurak Kompani and Bandalala communities, Bashar District of Wase Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Some Wase residents who spoke to Channels Television on the phone said the attacks on the villages occurred on Monday night when residents were retiring from the day’s work.

The bandits, according to the residents, attacked the villages simultaneously. They set houses on fire, leading to pandemonium in which some of the residents were killed and others sustaining injuries.

Over thirty persons were reportedly killed in Kompani Zurak while another ten were killed in Bandalala with several others still missing.

Residents of the attacked communities have fled to neighbouring villages to seek refuge.

One of the residents of Wase town Audu Ummah said that some of the injured from the attacked communities are receiving treatment in various health centres while other survivors have moved to Wase and other villages.

Security agencies are yet to comment on the attacks as of the time of this report. The state government has yet to do the same.

The incident adds to the growing number of attacks in communities in the North-Central state which has been plagued by incessant clashes.

Plateau, which lies on the dividing line between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, is a flashpoint for intercommunal violence.

In December, several people were killed in raids on villages. Thousands of others were displaced in the attacks.

Clashes in Nigeria’s North-West and North-Central states have their roots in tensions over land between nomadic herders and pastoral farmers.

Competition for natural resources, intensified by rapid population growth and climate pressures, has spiralled into broader criminality.

Worried by the incessant attacks, the UN’s World Food Programme warned that conflict and insecurity, along with inflation and climate change, could sharply drive up hunger levels across the country.

Several thousands of Iranians gathered Tuesday to mourn President Ebrahim Raisi and seven members of his entourage who were killed in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountainside in the northwest.

Waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president, mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi was headed when his helicopter crashed on Sunday.

They walked behind a lorry carrying the coffins of Raisi and his seven aides.

Their helicopter lost communications while it was on its way back to Tabriz after Raisi attended the inauguration of a joint dam project on the Aras river, which forms part of the border with Azerbaijan, in a ceremony with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev.

A massive search and rescue operation was launched on Sunday when two other helicopters flying alongside Raisi’s lost contact with his aircraft in bad weather.

State television announced his death in a report early on Monday, saying “the servant of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom”, showing pictures of him as a voice recited the Koran.

Killed alongside the Iranian president were Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, provincial officials, and members of his security team.

Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash as Iranians in cities nationwide gathered to mourn Raisi and his entourage.

Tens of thousands gathered in the capital’s Valiasr Square on Monday.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of national mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, as caretaker president until a presidential election can be held.

State media later announced that the election would will be held on June 28.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri, who served as deputy to Amir-Abdollahian, was named acting foreign minister.

From Tabriz, Raisi’s body will be flown to the Shiite clerical centre of Qom on Tuesday before being moved to Tehran that evening.

Processions will be held in in the capital on Wednesday morning before Khamenei leads prayers at a farewell ceremony.

Raisi’s body will then be flown to his home city of Mashhad, in the northeast, where he will be buried on Thursday evening after funeral rites.

Raisi, 63, had been in office since 2021. The ultra-conservative’s time in office saw mass protests, a deepening economic crisis and unprecedented armed exchanges with arch-enemy Israel.

Raisi succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, at a time when the economy was battered by US sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Condolence messages flooded in from Iran’s allies around the region, including the Syrian government, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

It was an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now in its eighth month, and soaring tensions between Israel and the “resistance axis” led by Iran.

Israel’s killing of seven Revolutionary Guards in a drone strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 triggered Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israel, involving hundreds of missiles and drones.

In a speech hours before his death, Raisi underlined Iran’s support for the Palestinians, a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Palestinian flags were raised alongside Iranian flags at ceremonies held for the late president.

AFP