In May 2025, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan opened his computer to find his email account completely deleted. It was not hacking or a technical glitch, but US sanctions that turned Microsoft from a service provider into a political tool.
This incident made European institutions realize that digital sovereignty is no longer a luxury but an operational emergency.
The “Smart Life” program reported that the deletion followed ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials, prompting a US executive order that cut Khan’s access to sensitive case files.
The court responded firmly, abandoning Microsoft Office entirely and moving to the European open-source platform OpenDesk.
This sparked a wider European digital revolution: the Austrian military fully abandoned Microsoft services, the French city of Lyon switched to open-source systems, and the French government migrated 5.7 million employees to the state-run Visio platform as an alternative to Zoom.
Sources – Agencies
