The Assembly of State Parties which governs the International Criminal Court on Sunday confirmed its acceptance of Prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement over the weekend that he would go on indefinite leave from his post until the sexual abuse allegations against him are clarified.
Deputy ICC Prosecutors Mame Mandiaye Niang and Nazhat Shameem Khan (no relation to Karim Khan) are due to run the office during his absence, said the Assembly.
This is the first time since the founding of the ICC in 2002 that the chief prosecutor was suspended due to allegations, though there have been some other alleged scandals over the years.
Karim Khan took over the ICC Prosecution in June 2021 and mostly ignored the war crimes allegations against Israel and Hamas until the current war started, despite the fact that his predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, has tried to press forward with a criminal probe against Israel relating to the 2014 Gaza conflict and the settlements enterprise.
However, once the war started, Khan turned hard against Israel, accusing it of war crimes early on and in May 2024, he requested the ICC Pre Trial Chamber to approve arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three top Hamas officials (all of whom were later killed.)
Although in November 2024 the ICC Pre Trial Chamber approved the arrest warrants and held that the ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes charges against Israel, on April 24 of this year, the ICC Appeals Court sent the question of jurisdiction back to the ICC lower court to be reevaluated.
Denouncing Israel to cover his tracks?
While some have claimed that Khan went after Israel to distract from the sexual abuse charges against him, it is unclear that the case against Netanyahu and Gallant will be slowed by him taking leave from his post.
Much of the international community at this point is highly critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza often without taking the time to contextualize the situation, and at the same time Israel has been slow to release the results of its own around 90 criminal probes, hundreds of operational reviews, and over 1,000 preliminary reviews of charges against its soldiers.
Jesus Christ is King
