Lawyer and human rights activist Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney, may soon face a ban from entering the United States, according to reports.
Amal and several top British barristers were alerted by the UK authorities about the possible ban from the Donald Trump administration after they gave legal aid to the International Criminal Court in a war crimes case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to The Financial Times.
In February, the US-sanctioned ICC prosecutor and British lawyer Karim Khan who became the first person to be hit with economic and travel sanctions authorised by the Trump administration against the ICC over investigations of U.S. citizens or U.S. allies. The sanctions include freezing of US assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the country.
However, the US has a pact with the United Nations to brief the U.N. Security Council on cases it had referred to the court in The Hague.
If the US decides to sanction Clooney, a British citizen, she will face the same fate. Amal is married to George Clooney, a US citizen, and owns a home in New York City, where they recently relocated. They reportedly purchased a condo in midtown Manhattan for an estimated $14.75 million. They mainly live in France.
Beirut-born Amal had announced on the Clooney Foundation for Justice website that she was one of the legal experts who was tasked with the ICC to investigate whether Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack. "We unanimously concluded" that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution, and extermination," she wrote.
