Fatou Bom Bensouda (; ; born 31 January 1961) is a Gambian lawyer and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who has served as the Gambian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom since 3 August 2022. She served as Prosecutor from June 2012 to June 2021, after having served as a Deputy Prosecutor in charge of the Prosecutions Division of the ICC from 2004 to 2012. Before that she was Minister of Justice and Attorney General of The Gambia from 1998 to 2000. She has also held positions as a legal adviser and a trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). On 2September 2020, Bensouda was named a "specially designated national" by the United States government under the Trump administration, forbidding all U.S. persons and companies from doing business with her. The Biden administration reversed course on 2April 2021 when President Joe Biden revoked EO 13928, removing Bensouda from the SDN list; US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement calling the previous sanctions "inappropriate and ineffective", but still restated that Washington will continue strongly opposing any ICC's actions relating to the Afghanistan and Palestinian situations. Early life and education Born on 31 January 1961 in Banjul (then Bathurst), Gambia, into a polygamous Muslim family, she is the daughter of Omar Gaye Nyang, who was a government driver and the country's most prominent wrestling promoter. Her father was a major landowner who also owned several wrestling arenas in the country. Fatou Bensouda is the niece of the Gambian historian and author Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof. Her father is related to the Joof family through his maternal grandmother Ndombuur Joof (Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof's great-aunt). Ndombuur is also the paternal grandmother of the renowned singer Marie Samuel Njie. She attended primary and secondary school in the Gambia before leaving in 1982 for Nigeria, where she graduated from the University of Ife with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) degree in 1986. The following year, she obtained her professional qualification as a barrister-at-law from the Nigeria Law School. She later became the Gambia's first expert in international maritime law after earning a master's of laws from the International Maritime Law Institute in Malta. Career Roles under Presidents Sir Dawda Jawara and Yahya Jammeh Fatou Bensouda was appointed as state counsel in 1987 and deputy director of public prosecutions in February 1994 for Sir Dawda Jawara's government. She