A US judge has suspended the severe sanctions imposed by the White House on the Italian Francesca Albanese, UN rapporteur for the Palestinian territories since 2022, who has stood out in recent years for denouncing a genocide in Gaza. She announced it herself on the social network X: “As the judge says: ‘Protecting freedom of expression is always in the public interest.’ Thanks to my daughter and my husband for defending me, and to everyone who has helped me so far. Together, we are one.”
In a passage of the 26 pages of the ruling, the judge rejects the measures with exclamation marks: “Albanese has done nothing but talk!”, according to Europa Press, which had access to the document. The ruling considers that the effect of the sanctions against the UN lawyer is to “punish” and “suppress annoying expressions.” Furthermore, it points out that Albanese enjoyed the protection of the United States Constitution, despite living abroad, due to having “substantial” ties with the country, sufficient to assert the rights guaranteed to its citizens by the First Amendment, which protects fundamental freedoms.
Francesca Albanese, married to a US citizen and residing in the US, had been included on a White House blacklist as if she were a drug trafficker or a terrorist. The same fate befell a total of 11 judges, prosecutors, and jurists of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Her assets were frozen, including her house in the United States, and she could not travel to the country, not even to the UN to present one of her two annual reports (the other is in Geneva). This is a violation of UN rules that guarantee immunity for the organization’s officials.
BREAKING! US court ha suspended the US sanctions against me!
As the judge says: “Protecting the Freedom of speech is always just the public interest”.
Thanks to my daughter and my husband for stepping up to defend me, and everyone who has helped so far.Together we are One. pic.twitter.com/z6L3tb7Esp
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 13, 2026
Additionally, due to international counter-terrorism agreements, she could not have accounts in any bank and could only use cash. Being included on the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) list of the US Treasury Department implies penalties for any financial entity that has a client listed there. The bank that does so cannot operate in dollars, faces multimillion-dollar fines, and is excluded from international payment circuits.
Albanese’s life had practically become very difficult, and she even denounced, in a parliamentary appearance in Italy, that if her husband invited her for a coffee, he could be accused of terrorism. On that occasion, she unsuccessfully called on the Italian government and the EU to react to this imposition of White House sanctions on European territory.
The Trump Administration’s harassment of Albanese began in the summer of 2025, after she presented her report From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide, in which she accused large US and other countries’ companies of being accomplices in Israel’s offensive in Gaza. She had already received threats after her previous March report, Anatomy of a Genocide, but on that occasion, the White House took a further step.
On July 9, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that sanctions already imposed in February on judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, would also apply to her. The accusation against her was precisely cooperating with the ICC and being “a threat to the global economy.”
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“Her political and economic war campaign against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Rubio declared, reproaching the “illegitimate and shameful efforts of Albanese to pressure the International Criminal Court to take action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and leaders.”
Albanese’s husband and 13-year-old daughter, US citizens, filed a lawsuit in February before the District Court of Columbia against Donald Trump; Marco Rubio; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; and former Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleging a violation of rights protected by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, for asset seizure without due process and for considering that freedom of expression was being violated. Now, District Judge Richard Leon of Washington has ruled in their favor.
“How revealing it is that a 13-year-old girl has the courage to do what the entire international community has not dared to do: bring President Trump to justice,” Albanese said last week during a visit to Spain. The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who met with her and awarded her the Order of Civil Merit, defended her and announced that he would request the European Commission to nullify the sanctions against Albanese and ICC members in the EU.
Sánchez sent a letter last Wednesday to the Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, requesting the application of the Blocking Statute, a formula that nullifies sanctions in the EU. The Spanish president pointed out that the punishment of Albanese sets a “very worrying” precedent that compromises “the independent functioning of essential institutions for international justice.” He also requested that the issue be included on the agenda of the next European Council meeting on June 18.
Regarding the Blocking Statute, a former Italian Supreme Court magistrate, Domenico Gallo, who appeared with Albanese in the Italian Parliament, explained that it originated in the 1990s. Faced with problems posed by White House sanctions on countries like Cuba, Libya, or Iran, the EU approved this blocking regulation in 1996, which halts the extraterritorial effects of third-country measures. The last update was in 2008.
“The EU can order member states to disobey US sanctions. When sanctions against the ICC were announced, Ursula Von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, Antonio Costa… criticized them, but only in words; then they did not react. It is an international scandal,” Gallo said. In his opinion, these measures have no legal basis; they simply distort the original purpose of the regulation to apply it to foreign citizens for political persecution purposes.
Also, 79 of the 125 countries that signed the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, have considered the White House decision illegal. In the EU, three did not: Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
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