Ex-ICC chief prosecutor reveals years-long intimidation, threats by Mossad
Former International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had revealed that she had been subject to a years-long coercion campaign by Mossad, going as far as to threaten her life if she did not drop an investigation into Israeli war crimes in occupied Palestine.
During a keynote address in The Hague on 24 May, she urged the European Union to trigger blocking statutes to shield the court from foreign sanctions and intimidation that have intensified since early 2025, adding that she had felt “left alone” and “unsupported” throughout the ordeal.
The disclosure followed the 2024 announcement by her successor, Karim Khan, that the court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
However, the campaign against the court was reportedly led much earlier by former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, who reportedly acted as Netanyahu’s “unofficial messenger” to derail and undermine the Palestine investigation.
“The fact they chose the head of Mossad to be the prime minister’s unofficial messenger to [Bensouda] was to intimidate, by definition,” one anonymous source familiar with Cohen’s operation said, adding that “It failed.”
Despite nearly a decade of clandestine harassment, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber ruled in 2021 that the court had jurisdiction over the occupied territories, formally authorising the criminal investigation.
The intimidation campaign dates back to 2015, immediately after Bensouda opened a preliminary examination into the “cycle of violence” in Palestine that encompasses both Palestinian and Israeli victims, and was not exclusively targeted at Israeli crimes. In one early incident, unidentified men delivered an envelope containing $500 to Bensouda’s private home, a gesture she said was intended to make it clear that her residence was being watched.
“They came directly to my house,” she told Al Jazeera in an interview, adding that “I got the message that they’re sending.”
In 2018, the operation escalated when Cohen reportedly “ambushed” Bensouda in a New York hotel suite while she was meeting with then-president Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 2019 and 2021, the former Mossad chief initiated a series of secret meetings where his tone shifted from an attempt to “win her over” to explicit threats, warning that her pursuit of justice would put the security of her and her family at risk.
During this same period, Mossad reportedly targeted Bensouda’s husband with a “smear campaign,” using transcripts of secret recordings in an unsuccessful attempt to discredit her.
These efforts coincided with the 2020 sanctions against Bensouda and her son, as well as the February 2025 revival of executive orders targeting Karim Khan and eight judges, which froze their assets and blocked their personal bank accounts.
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