Exclusive: ICC prosecutor Karim Khan details 'dangerous' attempt by states to remove him

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The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, has claimed that certain member states are attempting to politically remove him over investigations into Israeli war crimes. He describes facing intimidation and pressure amid ongoing allegations against him.

Exclusive: ICC prosecutor Karim Khan details 'dangerous' attempt by states to remove him David Hearst on Thu, 05/07/2026 - 17:02 British chief prosecutor criticises members of ICC governing body’s bureau in exclusive interview with MEE ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan accuses members of the court's governing body of waging a 'dangerous"'and biased campaign to remove him from office. (Middle East Eye) On The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has accused members of the court's governing body of waging a "dangerous" and biased campaign to remove him from office over unfounded sexual misconduct allegations and his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes. Speaking exclusively to Middle East Eye, Karim Khan described the extraordinary intimidation and pressure he said he had faced in connection with his pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister - including threats made by former British foreign secretary David Cameron and US Senator Lindsey Graham. He accused members of the bureau of the Assembly of State Parties (ASP) of subverting basic legal principles by ignoring the outcome of a United Nations investigation into the misconduct allegations - which they had commissioned - when judges appointed to review its findings concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing. Khan said he had not been afforded anonymity while the complaint against him was investigated, as other court officials previously facing misconduct allegations had been, after his name was confirmed to the media by the president of the bureau. “Why am I treated so differently?” he asked. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); "The process is a Khan-made process. It's specific to me." He warned that the ongoing campaign against him had pitched the court into “unchartered territory” which he said risked creating a dangerous precedent for removing elected officials through political pressure. “If a process can be suborned, if it can be subverted, if it can be undermined, because state appointees and diplomats, for whatever reason, think they know better, then this is a template for getting rid of any elected official, now or in the future, on spurious or flimsy or fabricated or unfounded grounds,” Khan told MEE. Khan has been on indefinite leave for almost a year pending the outcome of the investigation into allegations which he has strenuously denied. In March, MEE reported that a panel of judges appointed by the ASP bureau to review the investigation by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) had concluded there was no evidence of "misconduct or breach of duty" by Khan. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); But the prosecutor has still not returned to his duties after a group of disproportionately western and European states voted at a bureau meeting to disregard the panel of judges and re-investigate the case. Throughout the investigation, Khan kept his silence. Now he has decided to go public. Speaking to MEE earlier this week, the prosecutor criticised the president of the bureau, Finnish diplomat Paivi Kaukoranta, for revealing to the press that he was being investigated for sexual misconduct. He accused one of the ASP’s two vice presidents of meeting with his accuser “out of any matters of due process”. Khan said he had applied for three members of the bureau to be disqualified from the process that will decide his fate, accusing them of bias. He added that one of the three had recused themself - but that the bureau had refused to disqualify the other two. He did not disclose the identities of the three members. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The bureau has invited fresh submissions and is revisiting the evidence. Khan made a formal submission on Friday expressing concerns regarding the integrity of its process. “It's uncharted territory”, he told MEE. “It's never happened before that somebody who's been subject to an investigation has had his name revealed, because I'm not the first elected official to be investigated.” Exclusive: Staff in Karim Khan's office write in support of his return to ICC Read More » Judges and prosecutors who had previously been investigated, he said, benefited from “all the rights of confidentiality”. In October 2024, the Mail on Sunday reported that Kaukoranta, the ASP president, had confirmed in a statement that allegations had been made against Khan. The ASP subsequently published the same statement on its website. That “breached the obligations of confidentiality”, Khan said.  He added: “I believe the vice president had a meeting with the complainant out of any matters of due process.” Last October MEE reported that Margareta Kassangana, a Polish diplomat serving as a vice president of the ASP, met the woman who made the complaint against Khan to discuss the case prior to the decision by the ASP