Family of Francesca Albanese sues Trump administration over sanctions

The family of United Nations special rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, is suing the Trump administration over sanctions it imposed on her for criticism of Israel and companies involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The civil complaint was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the Trump administration breached Albanese’s First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, unreasonably seized her property without due process, and violated sanctions laws.

The complaint asked the court to call the sanctions unconstitutional.

The case was filed by Albanese’s husband, Massimiliano Cali, a senior economist for the World Bank in Tunisia, on behalf of himself, Albanese and their daughter, who was not identified by name. Albanese and her husband are Italian citizens, but their daughter is a US citizen.

“Francesca’s expression of her views about the facts as she has found them in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about the work of the ICC is core First Amendment activity,” the lawsuit says.

“At its heart, this case concerns whether Defendants can sanction a person - ruining their life and the lives of their loved ones, including their citizen daughter - because Defendants disagree with their recommendations or fear their persuasiveness,” the filing added.

Albanese was sanctioned in July by the US in connection with her work investigating genocide in Gaza, where over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war on the enclave. The sanctions effectively barred her from travelling to the US and froze her assets there.

She previously told Middle East Eye that the sanctions have also cut her off from the global financial system, including by blocking her ability to carry out regular daily transactions.

The filing says the Trump administration’s sanctions have had a negative impact on Albanese, who not only has a US citizen daughter but also assets in the country, including a house in Washington, DC.

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On Thursday, Albanese told The New York Times that she had experienced “enormous hardship”, especially because of her links to the US and concerns that her family could be penalised for maintaining ties with her. “There is a criminalization of my motherhood and the family bonds I have.”

US sanctions carry heft because the US financial system underwrites the world economy. The US can also impose secondary sanctions on people or entities that engage in financial transactions with a sanctioned person.

In some cases, sanctions may not have a practical impact on a person who lives in a country that operates outside the US financial system. For example, Russia has turned to alternative payment networks following sanctions applied for its invasion of Ukraine.

But as an Italian citizen with a US citizen daughter, US sanctions could be debilitating for Albanese. 

As part of her mandate, Albanese has issued three reports since October 2023, labelling Israel's war on Gaza as a genocide and denouncing the global economic and political systems that have supported Israel's war. She is not alone in her assessment; some of the world's foremost scholars and experts on the issue have drawn the same conclusion.

In an interview with MEE's Expert Witness podcast in November, where Albanese discussed the findings of her latest report, Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime, she accused 63 states of enabling Israeli breaches of international law. 

She said that despite overwhelming evidence of genocide and mass atrocities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Europe's most powerful states, including Italy, Germany and France, continue to provide diplomatic, military and political cover for Israel.