A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s sanctions against a United Nations official who has called for war crimes charges against Israeli officials over their actions in Gaza, ruling that the penalties violated her free-speech rights, Politico reported.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued the ruling Wednesday, finding that the sanctions imposed on Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for Palestinian human rights, ran afoul of the First Amendment because they rested solely on her urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli officials, the news agency said. 

“Albanese has done nothing more than speak!” Leon wrote in a 26-page decision Politico said was “salted with his trademark exclamation points.” “It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions — they are nothing more than her opinion,” the judge wrote.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed the sanctions on Albanese last July under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump authorizing penalties against people “directly engaged” in ICC investigations of alleged atrocities in Gaza. Rubio’s designation alleged that Albanese had “spewed unabashed antisemitism,” Politico said. 

Albanese has denied the charge and argued that some in Israel are using claims of antisemitism to justify war crimes, while the Israeli government denies committing war crimes in Gaza and has called the ICC process biased.

Albanese and her husband had complained the U.S. sanctions designation effectively froze them out of the international banking system, made travel to the United States impossible, and even prompted the family’s health insurer to deny payment for services received by Albanese. The lawsuit challenging the sanctions was filed in February by Albanese’s husband, World Bank economist Massimiliano Cali, and the couple’s daughter, the news agency said.

The Trump administration countered that licenses it had issued, including ones allowing certain transactions tied to the family’s Washington property and to provide “necessary” support for their U.S. citizen daughter, softened the sanctions’ impact. Leon was unmoved, according to the report.