Israel questions fitness of ICC judge to investigate Netanyahu

Beti Hohler had previously served in the prosecutor’s office of the international court.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel is questioning the impartiality of one of the three judges probing whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant should be arrested for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Reuters reported Wednesday.

Slovenian judge Beti Hohler was appointed three weeks ago following the resignation of the presiding judge, Romanian justice Iulia Motoc, for health reasons.

Reuters saw a statement sent to the court by Israel’s Attorney General’s office asking for Hohler to “provide information to clarify whether there are (or are not) grounds to reasonably doubt her impartiality,” considering that her previous position had been to serve as an attorney in the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP).

“Israel does not suggest that judge Hohler’s previous employment with the OTP necessarily or automatically gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of a lack of impartiality,” the statement said. “However, judges of this Court have acknowledged that previous duties within the OTP may, depending on the circumstances, give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.”

This request may further delay the panel’s decision on whether to indict Netanyahu and Gallant for their alleged “criminal responsibility for…war crimes and crimes against humanity” in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

The request for an arrest warrant, made in May by ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, also included three Hamas heads for their leading roles in the invasion of Israel last October 7, in which Hamas-led terrorists massacred 1,200 people and took 251 hostage, 97 of whom, both dead and alive, are still in captivity.

Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif have since been killed by Israel, although Haniyeh’s death in Tehran was not officially acknowledged as an Israeli hit job.

Israel, along with several of its allies and legal organizations, had previously submitted official challenges to the warrant.

These outlined the ICC’s “manifest lack of jurisdiction” in the case and charged that the court was violating its own statutes by “failing to provide Israel with the opportunity to exercise its right to investigate by itself the claims raised by the Prosecutor, before proceeding,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in its accompanying statement in September.

“No other democracy with an independent and respected legal system like that which exists in Israel has been treated in this prejudicial manner by the Prosecutor,” the Ministry added.

Khan, who had asked that the judges make a quick decision when presenting the arrest request, has since become the subject of an external investigation due to complaints by a former underling that he had made many improper and unwanted sexual advances to her while she worked in his office.