White House confirms war crimes prosecutor first target of ICC sanctions

NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is the first person to be hit with economic and travel sanctions authorized by U.S. President Donald Trump that target the war crimes tribunal over investigations of U.S. citizens or U.S. allies.

Khan, who is British, was named on Monday in an annex to an executive order signed by Trump last week. Reuters reported on Friday that Khan had been designated by Washington.

The sanctions, which repeat action Trump took during his first term, include freezing of U.S. assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States.

The ICC on Friday condemned the sanctions, pledging to stand by its staff and "continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it."

Court officials met in The Hague on Friday to discuss the implications of the sanctions.

The International Criminal Court, which opened in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the U.N. Security Council.

Under an agreement between the United Nations and Washington, Khan should be able to regularly travel to New York to brief the U.N. Security Council on cases it had referred to the court in The Hague. The Security Council has referred the situations in Libya and Sudan's Darfur region to the ICC.

"We trust that any restrictions taken against individuals would be implemented consistently with the host country's obligations under the U.N. Headquarters agreement," deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Friday.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Anthony Deustch; Editing by Chris Reese)

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