Francesca Albanese under US sanctions Banca Etica cannot open the account, but asks politics for a commitment

After the report on the genocide economy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio extended US sanctions to the UN special rapporteur on 9 July, closing her accounts. Francesca Albanese asked Banca Etica to open a deposit, but the possible risks made the bank desist. Which is now moving and asking the politicians to stop the sanctions

24 settembre 2025

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It is a move that threatens to put an entire system in check. The US sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine who was 'punished' for having denounced companies complicit in the Israeli occupation, have also put Banca Etica, an Italian credit institution whose clients include many NGOs, non-profit organisations, and third sector organisations, and which does not invest in arms, in difficulty. The UN expert had asked the bank to open an account, but the risk of being indirectly affected by US sanctions, with blocks to international operations, made it desist. A paradox: the sanctions system, usually used to stop financing to terrorist organisations or dictatorial states, in addition to damaging a UN expert, could hinder the Italian ethical finance group. This is why the managers have asked Italian institutions to take action and have initiated interlocutions, including at European level, to break the impasse.

The complaint of sanctions against Francesca Albanese

“I was accused of being a threat to the global economy”
Francesca Albanese - UN special rapporteur on Palestine

The case was publicly denounced in the 'Caduti di Nassiriya' room in the Senate on 4 September when, during a conference convened by Senator Peppe De Cristoforo (Avs), Albanese recounted the difficulties caused by the sanctions and the general director of Banca Etica, Nazzareno Gabrielli, illustrated the possible implications.

Last February 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court, a response to the investigation of two Israeli political leaders including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yossi Golan. According to a White House memo, the ICC had taken "unlawful actions against the United States and our close ally Israel" and therefore banned senior officials and employees involved in the ICC's investigative work, as well as their immediate family members, from entering the United States and ordered the freezing of their assets held in the US.

"The measures taken against me on 9 July, by way of a statement by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, extend the Court's sanctions measures against me," Albanese said, noting that the decision came six days after the publication of the report on the economy of the Israeli occupation: "I was accused of being a threat to the global economy". An accusation that is not new: 'Already in May 2025, another branch of the American administration had put me on notice dissuading me from continuing that investigation because I was, and I quote, terrorising American companies', such as Google, Microsoft or big oil companies.

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What do sanctions do to Francesca Albanese?

“European banks that do not comply with them may be hit with secondary sanctions that include the inability to operate in dollars, exclusion from international payment circuits, and even financial penalties.”Nazzareno Gabrielli - General Manager of Banca Etica

'Sanctions are an impediment to freedom of movement,' explained the UN Special Rapporteur. Then there are other aspects, such as financial measures, including 'the freezing of everything that is my possession', such as my bank account, and 'fines of up to one billion and 20 years in prison if it is proven that there is an economic exchange also in kind against me. I am the mother of an American citizen and my husband works for an organisation that is in the United States. So you understand that it hits me in the heart right now'.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac), in a license signed by Director Lisa M. Palluconi, ordered the closure of all financial channels linked to Albanese. 'I had a bank account in the US that was closed, but I cannot open an account in another country, not even in Italy, because of the US sanctions,' Albanese said.

Impossible to do so even through an institution such as Banca Etica, which "received a request from Dr. Francesca Albanese in recent months to open a current account," recounted General Manager Nazzareno Gabrielli. "We accepted this request with the will and desire to be able to offer our services to a person whom we esteem and who performs a delicate and valuable task on a United Nations mandate in defence of human rights. However, the bank had to take note of the potential risks when, 'during the course of the necessary verifications required by Italian and European regulations on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, it emerged that the Albanian doctor was included on US sanctions lists'. When a name is blacklisted, 'a blocking alert is triggered due to the risk of the bank receiving serious sanctions if the account is opened'. This can happen even if it is a list prepared by the US Treasury Department because 'Ofac lists, although issued by a US body, condition the entire global financial system'.

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Gabrielli went on to explain the reasons: 'European banks that do not respect them may be hit by secondary sanctions involving the inability to operate in dollars, exclusion from international payment circuits, and even financial penalties'. Reasons for which "faced with this picture, we had no margin of choice": "Opening a current account in Dr. Albanese's name, as long as she is on the list of reported persons, would expose Banca Etica to the risk of seeing its international operations compromised with dramatic consequences for all our members and customers", almost 100 thousand people. In particular, the possibility of carrying out international operations (receiving donations, making payments) of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), non-profit organisations, and associations operating across several countries could be compromised. But Banca Etica customers who have payment cards issued by US companies could also lose out.

"When instruments designed to target criminal or terrorist activities end up preventing a UN representative from exercising elementary rights such as opening a current account, it creates a distortion that calls into question the very principles of justice and freedom," Gabrielli said. Banca Etica will continue in its role to draw the attention of institutions to these limits because we believe that the financial system cannot turn into a mechanism of unjustified financial exclusion.

The former general director of Banca Etica, Alessandro Messina, in a post on Linkedin and then in an interview with Altreconomia, explained that the credit institution could have decided, after due checks, to open the deposit running risks because 'Ofac does not automatically bind European banks'.

This article was translated by Kompreno with the support of DeepL.
 

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