ICC governing body set to rule on prosecutor Karim Khan misconduct claims
The International Criminal Court’s executive body is meeting on Monday to discuss its response to a judicial report on allegations of sexual misconduct facing the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan.
The report, by an independent panel of three judges, is understood to advise the 21-member Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) whether Khan has committed serious misconduct, less serious misconduct, or no misconduct at all.
Khan has strenuously denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.
The report, which was sent to the ASP bureau last week, will not be made publicly available, and has not been seen by the prosecutor or the majority of the court's 125 member states.
Only members of the bureau have been handed copies of the highly confidential report, diplomatic sources told Middle East Eye.
Since December, the panel has been examining an external report conducted by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) into the allegations against Khan.
The OIOS investigation was commissioned by the ASP presidency in November 2024 following media reports that a member of Khan's office had accused him of sexual assault, and after the complainant refused to cooperate with the ICC’s own investigative body.
The judges' report provides non-binding advice to the ASP's leadership regarding whether a finding of misconduct has been established.
According to an internal ASP document seen by MEE, in the event of a finding of serious misconduct or misconduct of a less serious nature, the bureau may decide to suspend Khan pending a final resolution of the case.
In either case, Khan would be given 30 days to respond to the report and to attend a hearing.
If the bureau approves a finding of serious misconduct, and following the hearing, the 125 members of the court must vote by an absolute majority (63 states) to remove Khan from office.
A finding of a less serious misconduct, on the other hand, may prompt the bureau to impose disciplinary measures on the prosecutor.
It remains unclear whether bureau members will reach a decision during Monday's meeting.
"The bureau will either form a view or agree on a process," a member of the ASP told MEE on condition of anonymity.
"The issues are complex. Delegates take instructions from capitals," said the diplomat.
"It’s an adjudicative responsibility. We need to compare notes and try to convince each other. It’s a diverse matter.
"Some states parties might come ready to make a decision," added the source. "There will be an attempt to do this today."
The judges have followed the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt", the highest standard of proof in criminal law.
“If the Assembly is ultimately asked to rely on investigative findings when considering possible consequences for the prosecutor, those findings must be supported by evidence that reaches the highest evidentiary threshold,” said ICC expert Ezequiel Jimenez, author of Governing the International Criminal Court.
“In practical terms, conclusions about misconduct should only emerge if the facts are established to a level comparable to proof beyond reasonable doubt," he told MEE.
"Otherwise, the court risks creating a precedent in which internal accountability is perceived as arbitrary rather than judicially grounded, which would ultimately weaken confidence in the institution.”
Khan has been on a voluntary leave of absence since May last year. His deputy prosecutors have been in charge of his office in his absence.
The investigation has cast a long shadow over the court’s leadership, with prolonged uncertainty over the future of the prosecutor raising concerns among diplomats and staff about the court’s ability to fulfil its mandate during the transitional state of limbo.
Before he was placed on leave, Khan and his deputies had been busy investigating atrocity crimes in a dozen situations, including Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Philippines.
Sanctions and threats
Since Khan's decision to apply for arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then defence minister Yoav Gallant in May 2024, the court has faced a ferocious campaign by Israel and its allies, primarily the US, attempting to pressure him to drop the investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli leaders.
Since February 2025, US President Donald Trump's administration has imposed financial and visa sanctions on Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, six judges, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, and three Palestinian NGOs in connection with the Israel-Palestine investigation.
The US has also threatened sanctions against the court itself, which ICC officials consider a "doomsday scenario".
ICC judges are currently examining an Israeli challenge to its jurisdiction over the Palestine situation, and a separate Israeli complaint, filed on 17 November, which seeks to disqualify the prosecutor over alleged lack of impartiality.
MEE revealed last summer that on 23 April 2024, as Khan was preparing to apply for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the then British foreign secretary David Cameron threatened in a phone call with the prosecutor that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if the court issued the warrants.
The UK's foreign office in January confirmed the call took place but has declined to comment on Cameron's threats.
In his first comment on the matter, Khan in December filed a submission to the ICC's appeal chamber in response to an Israeli request for him to be removed from the investigation and for the warrants to be dropped, corroborating MEE's previous reporting, which uncovered many details of efforts to undermine Khan, including Cameron's explosive phone call.
His statement sets out in detail the chronology of events that led his office to apply for warrants against the two Israelis, as well as Hamas leaders, on 20 May 2024, after months of what he described as “a meticulous process” by his office.
The allegations of sexual misconduct were first revealed to Khan in person by members of his team on 2 May 2024, the same day he was planning to announce the Netanyahu and Gallant arrest warrants, according to the timeline of events outlined in the document.
Israel alleges that Khan rushed the warrants after he was made aware of sexual misconduct allegations against him. But Khan's statement rejected Israel's case, describing it as being based on “a haze of ends-oriented conjecture and misleading or false assertions”, and “a miasma of speculative reporting”.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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