ICC members vote to dismiss embattled prosecutor Karim Khan

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Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, looks up prior to a press conference in The Hague, Netherlands, July 3, 2023 - Copyright © africanews Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

By Africanews with AFP

Last updated: 24/07 - 21:21

ICC

International Criminal Court member states voted Friday to dismiss prosecutor Karim Khan, diplomatic sources told AFP, following disputed allegations that he sexually assaulted a female member of his staff. Khan, 56, was suspended last month by a key governing body of the ICC ahead of the secret ballot in which 82 of 125 members voted to remove him, a motion that required an absolute majority. According to the sources, only 13 states voted for Khan to stay in his post during the closed-door session at the UN headquarters in New York. A further 15 members abstained, while some did not attend the vote.

In May 2025, Khan stepped back from his duties to fight the allegations made by one of his female colleagues after an inquiry was launched the previous year. The alleged victim, a Malaysian lawyer who worked as Khan's direct assistant, gave her account of what happened in an interview last week with CNN. The woman, who asked to be identified by her first name Sarah, described "an escalation of attempts" that resulted in physical assault. "There is no way for something to be consensual when you have such a power disparity," she told CNN. "What I think many people don't understand is that Mr Khan was not just my boss, he was everyone's boss." Khan, who has been in the job since 2021, categorically denies the accusations. Speaking before the vote, Paivi Kaukoranta, head of the assembly that oversees the ICC, described the case as a "complex and sensitive disciplinary matter." "I trust that I can count on your cooperation to ensure that the assembly can address the matter in a way that fully respects the privacy and rights of the persons involved, as well as the court as an institution," she said. 'Credibility' In an open letter published this week on X, Khan's attorneys called on ICC member states not to remove him, saying that no wrongdoing had been proven. They also warned the vote could endanger the independence of future prosecutors, an apparent reference to Khan's headline-grabbing cases. In 2024, he successfully applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over the Gaza war. The ICC, which is based in The Hague, also issued warrants for the arrest of several key leaders of Hamas, who have since been killed. Khan was the target of US sanctions over the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, as were several ICC judges. Gideon Saar, foreign minister of Israel, said on X that Khan's removal was "long-delayed" and said the arrest warrants were "an attempt to deflect from the serious misconduct he feared would be revealed." "These warrants, issued against a country that is not even a member of the ICC, should never have been sought in the first place and should be revoked immediately," he said. Before the vote, Stephan Rapp, a former US ambassador specializing in war crimes, told AFP he believed the evidence was sufficient to remove Khan from office. "If they don't, that may be the end of the court," he said. "It'll destroy its credibility and make itself even more vulnerable to these unfair attacks from the United States." Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a campaign against the ICC, threatening more sanctions and accusing it of posing "an intolerable threat to US sovereignty."