Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the Worldwide Legal Court docket, appears up previous to a press convention in The Hague, Netherlands, July 3, 2023.
Peter Dejong/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Peter Dejong/AP
UNITED NATIONS — The Worldwide Legal Court docket voted to take away the worldwide tribunal’s chief prosecutor on Friday, practically two years after sexual misconduct allegations towards him first emerged, the court docket’s oversight physique introduced.
British barrister Karim Khan was accused of sexual misconduct with a feminine aide, as outlined by The Related Press in a sequence of tales, allegations which he has steadfastly denied.
By a big majority, the ICC’s 125-member states ousted Khan from his place, the primary time a chief prosecutor has ever been faraway from workplace.
The court docket’s oversight physique, the Meeting of States Events, concluded that Khan had dedicated “serious misconduct and serious breach of duty,” mentioned Päivi Kaukoranta, the physique’s president.
The 56-year-old Khan was quickly eliminated from his duties on the ICC in June, pending Friday’s vote, after a report by the manager committee of the court docket’s oversight physique discovered he had dedicated “serious misconduct.” In keeping with paperwork seen by the AP, Khan engaged in a sexual relationship with the girl and tried to forestall her from pursuing her allegations. Khan disputes these findings.
Early within the session, a movement introduced by Sierra Leone that will have made it tougher to oust Khan failed and diplomats shortly moved ahead to vote on removing, a number of hours forward of schedule, in response to three diplomats conversant in the proceedings.
The prolonged and sophisticated course of has pitted human rights advocates, employees and member states towards each other at a time when the court docket is already dealing with daunting challenges, together with a marketing campaign by the USA to “dismantle” the ICC, which was established to prosecute individuals liable for humanity’s worst crimes.
In an announcement final week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned the U.S. was launching a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”
Rubio mentioned he’ll strain member states to withdraw from the establishment, sanction organizations that work with the court docket and ban employees from touring to the USA. Nations that “enjoy the benefits of the U.S. security umbrella” will probably be known as upon to reject the court docket’s jurisdiction over U.S. residents.
Hours after the vote, Venezuela introduced it could withdraw from the court docket. “Venezuela considers that the Court’s actions reflect a demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South,” Félix Plasencia, the nation’s international affairs minister introduced in an announcement. Earlier this yr, prosecutors on the court docket introduced they had been dropping an investigation into whether or not U.S. sanctions towards Venezuela certified as crimes towards humanity, citing a scarcity of proof. A separate investigation into doable crimes dedicated by Venezuelan safety forces below former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will proceed.
Trump’s administration already has introduced sanctions towards Khan and a dozen different ICC employees in retaliation for warrants the court docket has issued for high Israeli officers, together with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the warfare in Gaza and investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
“Karim Khan believed that by launching a political witch hunt against Israel and issuing a politically motivated arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the world would ignore the grave sexual misconduct allegations against him. He was wrong,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, mentioned in an announcement.
The allegations have change into entwined with the court docket’s investigation into the warfare in Gaza, specialists mentioned.
“Political considerations have been folded into this, especially as it is the first time a prosecutor has pursued warrants against a Western ally,” Iva Vukusic, a researcher at Utrecht College who has been following the method, instructed the AP.
Khan’s removing could have no speedy affect on the arrest warrants in 2024 for Netanyahu and former Protection Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes towards humanity, which might solely be withdrawn by ICC judges.
