Rhino: The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Friday that it has replaced for health reasons one of the judges who will rule on a request by prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a move that could further delay the case.
Prosecutors in May requested an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant as well as three leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), saying there were reasonable grounds to believe they had all committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The presiding judge in that case, Romanian Judge Iulia Motoc, requested a replacement for health reasons on Friday and was immediately replaced by Betty Holler, the court’s Slovenian judge, the court’s president said.
The replacement is expected to further delay the decision on whether to issue potential arrest warrants in the case, which deals with the Gaza conflict, as the new judge will need time to familiarize herself with all the documents in the case.
There are no set deadlines for the court, but it has generally taken about three months to rule on requests for arrest warrants in previous cases. The decision has already been held up by several rounds of legal wrangling by Israel, which is challenging the court’s jurisdiction.