The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, who filed charges against Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity, is facing disciplinary proceedings against him over allegations of sexual misconduct.
After more than a year of investigating claims that Karim Khan engaged in sexual misconduct with a subordinate staffer, the Office of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) has voted in favor of pursuing disciplinary proceedings against Khan, Reuters reported.
According to The New York Timesthe alleged victim disclosed the sexual contact with Khan to her husband and several colleagues in April 2024. After colleagues confronted Khan in May, the jury report quotes a witness who noted that Khan “jumped onto the ‘lifeline’ of an alternate story when another colleague present said he “suspected whether the Mossad was playing a role behind the scenes.”
ICC PROSECUTOR BEHIND NETANYAHU ARREST OFFENSE STEPS AGAINST SEXUAL MISCONDUCT PROBE
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan poses during an interview with AFP in the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais Royal in Paris on February 7, 2024. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP)
Just weeks later, Khan filed arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The Trump administration sanctioned Khan in February 2025 in response to the war crimes warrants against the Israeli officials.
He said it was a sign of “how broken” the ICC is “that such a politicized investigation could go ahead.”
The disciplinary measures came as 15 member states voted in favor of disciplining Khan, with four votes against and two abstentions. In a letter read at the meeting, prosecutors’ officials noted that they were not in favor of Khan remaining in his position as chief prosecutor.
SCANDAL LEAVES THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT GRASPING FOR LEGITIMITY AGAINST ISRAEL INVESTIGATIONS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C), Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army Herzi Halevi (R), and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (L) monitor the attack by Israeli warplanes on Yemen’s Hudaydah port, controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis on the Red Sea coast, from the operations center in Jerusalem on July 20, 2024. (Israeli Prime Minister’s Office/Anadolu)
The vote represented a change from the three-judge consensus last month that found there was insufficient evidence to prove the charges against Khan “beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to the New York Times report. The judges based their findings on a United Nations investigation conducted by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which produced more than 5,000 pages of evidence. While the UN investigation report found that Khan had “non-consensual sexual contact” with the employee, the judge’s report found there was no evidence of misconduct.
In a press release, the Association of International Criminal Law Prosecutors (AICLP) reported “structural deficiencies” that have become apparent in the proceedings against Khan.
This includes an independent oversight mechanism whose processes were “inadequate to the task” when it closed an investigation into the attack after the alleged victim “refused to make a formal complaint” and claimed she feared retaliation. “The Court cannot credibly prosecute the most serious crimes against individuals and at the same time tolerate a culture that does not adequately protect its own personnel,” the report said. AICLP argued.
Khan’s alleged retaliation against staff supporting the complainant further involved the AICLP. “We find that the standard of fitness to lead the world’s premier international criminal prosecution agency is not simply the absence of proven misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt,” the AICLP wrote. “It also includes the demonstrated ability to command the trust of the institution’s own personnel, and that trust appears, on the evidence now before the Assembly of States Parties, to be deeply and publicly violated.”
Flag with the logo of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 29, 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images)
The AICLP believes that “a prompt, principled and transparent resolution is not only a matter of fairness to the individuals directly involved, but a prerequisite for restoring the operational integrity of an agency on which the cause of international criminal law depends.”
Gallo noted that “the panel of judges appears to be deadlocked because there is insufficient evidence to meet the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ standard,” and wondered why “a particular international official [should] are subject to a ridiculously high standard of proof, while this is not the case for lower-ranking personnel.”
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The ICC did not respond to follow-up questions about whether the investigation into Gallant and Netanyahu will continue if Khan is removed from office.
Reuters contributed to this report.
