Are World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, billionaire Bill Gates and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen standing trial at the International Criminal Court or any other multination court for COVID-19 vaccine deals that led to the death of a significant number of people? No, that's not true: There is no such trial at the Court, and there have been no credible reports of the three public figures becoming co-defendants in such a lawsuit.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok by user @life_racer207777 on December 12, 2023, under the title "It's obvious things are moving in the right direction" (translated from Romanian to English by Lead Stories staff). It opened:
The ICC opened a lawsuit against Tedros, from the World Health Organization, Bill Gates directly, and Ursula von der Leyen for the COVID-19 vaccine acquisition and the agreement they made, the silent agreement, to kill us.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Jan 8 12:12:00 2024 UTC)
No lawsuit involving the three alleged defendants at the International Criminal Court (ICC) (archived here) or at the European Union (EU) Court of Justice (archived here) was found following multiple searches (archived here and here) in the online databases. Also, no credible media sources have reported on such legal actions, which would be major news.
There is only one article in Romanian (archived here) from CorectNews.com, an unreliable news website, which references a source on Telegram. This source leads to an Epoch Times piece (archived here), also considered untrustworthy in Germany, from late November 2023. The Epoch Times article mentions an organization called United for Freedom filing a 24-page complaint against the three at the ICC. However, it is unclear who this organization is and what expertise it holds. A search in the national NGO database (archived here) indicates it is not Romanian. Additionally, a Google search for "United for Freedom" (archived here) brings up a variety of inconclusive results.
The ICC handles cases involving genocide and crimes of aggression. Trials are not initiated solely based on complaints. Instead, the Office of the Prosecutor assesses various factors, including determining if there is substantial evidence of crimes falling within the ICC's jurisdiction, checking for ongoing national proceedings on the matter and evaluating whether launching an investigation would align with the interests of justice and the welfare of the victims. These criteria are outlined on the ICC's website (archived here).
The sole recognized legal proceeding implicating von der Leyen and the European Commission (which doesn't involve Gates or Ghebreyesus) is the trial initiated by The New York Times in early 2023 (archived here) related to "Pfizergate" (archived here). The lawsuit, filed by the U.S. newspaper at the EU Court of Justice, alleges that the Commission failed to disclose the text messages (archived here) exchanged between von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer during the COVID pandemic.
Neither the World Health Organization, under the leadership of Ghebreyesus, nor Bill Gates possesses the authority to engage in or execute vaccine deals on behalf of the EU or any other nations. Moreover, the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines (archived here) have been confirmed.
