ICC top prosecutor removed over sexual misconduct allegations
Members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) voted to remove Karim Khan as chief prosecutor over allegations of sexual harassment.
Khan, who was elected the third prosecutor of the ICC in 2021, was suspended from duty last month. The dismissal decision was accepted with 82 positive votes.
The court’s oversight body found in June that he had committed a “serious breach of duty and serious misconduct” by engaging in inappropriate sexual intercourse with a senior ICC staff member and trying to prevent her from pursuing her complaint.
Khan has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.
His lawyers called his suspension “unlawful, procedurally unfair and unsupported by evidence.”
This process goes beyond the fate of a single prosecutor and could reshape the world’s only permanent war crimes tribunal.
The misconduct investigation has thrust the institution into a dazzling spotlight, intensified divisions within the institution, and has been accompanied by an unprecedented campaign to undermine and indeed dismantle the ICC in its entirety.
The fear among its supporters is that the court is weakened and less capable of confronting the most serious global threats.
Khan, a prominent British lawyer, has been on voluntary leave since May 2025 to fight the allegations. He is barred from practicing law in the UK after the Bar Standards Board imposed an interim ban while it conducts its own investigation.
He was unable to participate in the vote at the United Nations headquarters in New York because he was barred from entering the United States due to sanctions imposed by the Trump administration over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli officials in Gaza.
Even if he is dismissed, it seems unlikely that the debate will end there.
The decision followed an extremely sensitive process that left the court under intense scrutiny.
In May 2024, allegations that Khan was involved in sexual harassment involving a female staff member were reported to the ICC by a third party.
The court’s Independent Oversight Mechanism (IOM) launched an investigation, but the case was later closed after the alleged victim refused to participate.
Critics of the process argued that the investigation was mishandled and that trust in the IOM was damaged.
Investigators ultimately said there was not enough evidence to prove the allegations.
A second referral was made in October 2024. The matter was later turned over to the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which conducted a broader investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and abuse of power.
This investigation lasted from November 2024 to December 2025 and produced more than 5,000 pages of evidence and testimony.
The OIOS findings were then reviewed by a panel of three judges tasked with making a recommendation as to whether Khan’s conduct amounted to serious misconduct, less serious misconduct, or no misconduct.
The allegations emerge at a time of extraordinary pressure on the ICC and coincide with wider political tensions.
The United States imposed sanctions on Khan, who sought to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes related to the war in Gaza.
Washington’s attitude toward the court generally has become increasingly hostile in recent years.
Earlier this month, the US launched a new “whole of government” campaign to dismantle the ICC “brick by brick” as a threat to American sovereignty; He promised visa bans, asset freezes and diplomatic pressure on allies to withdraw from the court or deny jurisdiction over their own citizens.
The USA, Russia and Israel are not members of the ICC. However, the court may exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed by its nationals on the territory of ICC member states.
