Jehovah’s Witnesses – COVID-19 Crisis and Vaccination – ICC Investigation into the Governing Body and Watch Tower
This page presents the official request for investigation submitted by Abdías to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office, regarding serious facts under international law. It includes context, legal grounds, and the official acknowledgment issued by the Court.
Abdias Foco
To the attention of the Office of the Prosecutor International Criminal Court Maanweg 174 2516 AB The Hague Netherlands
Subject: Alleged involvement of members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in crimes against humanity related to the management of the COVID-19 crisis
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hereby submit this communication under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, to bring to your attention facts that may constitute crimes against humanity, as defined by your jurisdiction.
The global management of the COVID-19 crisis, particularly the massive and coercive vaccination campaign, exposed millions of people to serious risks without informed consent. Lives were shattered, bodies harmed, fundamental freedoms violated. This policy, implemented systematically and broadly, led to unprecedented human suffering. We request that these facts be examined by your Office, with a view to a possible opening of an investigation, in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute.
The global handling of the COVID-19 crisis involved coercive measures, a massive vaccination campaign, and suppression of scientific dissent. Millions of people were exposed to emergency-authorized products without informed consent, and serious adverse effects were reported in official pharmacovigilance databases. This communication aims to bring these facts to the attention of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office for legal review under Article 15 of the Rome Statute.
This is not a management error. It is not a public health oversight. It is a global policy that sacrificed the individual in the name of a sanitary dogma. When institutions impose an experimental product on populations minimally exposed to the initial threat, while concealing side effects and repressing dissent, it goes beyond political error: it becomes a systematic attack on human dignity. And it deserves to be qualified for what it is: a crime against humanity.
From an epidemiological and ethical standpoint, it is profoundly incoherent to have imposed vaccination on the entire global population, when data available from the early months of the pandemic clearly indicated that COVID-19 posed a serious threat primarily to a very narrow segment of the population — particularly the elderly and vulnerable. In France, for example, the average age of those who died from COVID-19 was 81, demonstrating that the lethal risk was concentrated in an age group already exposed to high natural mortality.
This disproportion between actual risk and imposed response raises fundamental questions about the legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality of the measures adopted, especially when applied without informed consent and accompanied by social or professional sanctions.
See annexes A B C D
I wish to bring to the attention of the Prosecutor’s Office additional elements regarding the alleged complicity of members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the pandemic — Kenneth Cook, Samuel Herd, Geoffrey Jackson, Stephen Lett, Gerrit Lösch, Mark Sanderson, David Splane, Antony Morris — in connection with the crimes against humanity already outlined in my initial communication. It is alleged that these members, through their spiritual authority and significant moral influence over believers, exerted intense psychological pressure to enforce adherence to COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.
This pressure was notably expressed through internal publications titled “News Points” Nos. 7, 8, 9, and 10 from the year 2021, publicly analyzed on the YouTube channel Abdias JW COVID — videos 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27. These documents, although tacitly worded, unequivocally conveyed that following government health recommendations — including vaccination — was considered an act aligned with divine will, as interpreted by the organization. This resulted in a disguised moral injunction, equating non-compliance with disobedience to God.
This logic is based on a fundamental principle regularly affirmed by members of the Governing Body: the requirement of absolute trust in their spiritual leadership, presented as the exclusive channel of communication between God and believers. As stated in the Watchtower magazine of November 2013, page 20: “We must have complete trust in the Governing Body, for it is through them that Jehovah guides us today.” Thus, any questioning of the directives issued — even when they pertain to health or governmental decisions — is implicitly perceived as an attack on faith itself.
It is argued that this communication strategy, emanating from a religious governing body, contributed to the commission of crimes against humanity by inducing individuals, through moral coercion and spiritual manipulation, to undergo medical procedures against their informed will. This influence could be qualified as complicity under Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute, as “aid, encouragement or contribution” to the commission of a criminal act, with knowledge of the principal criminal intent.
I request that the Prosecutor’s Office examine these elements as part of the preliminary analysis, to assess whether members of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses may be considered accomplices to the crimes against humanity outlined in my initial communication.
Given that the instruction to obey government health recommendations remains in effect within the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization, I also wish to bring to the attention of the Prosecutor’s Office the current members of the Governing Body — Gage Fleegle, Jody Jedele, Jacob Rumph, and Jeffrey Winder — as potential responsible parties, in light of their role in continuing this directive.
Hoping that these facts will contribute to the opening of an impartial and rigorous investigation, I remain respectfully yours,
Abdias Foco