BRUSSELS — The chief prosecutor of the Worldwide Felony Court docket has stepped down briefly pending the result of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, the courtroom introduced Friday.
Karim Khan has categorically denied accusations that he tried for greater than a yr to coerce a feminine aide right into a sexual relationship and groped her in opposition to her will.
The ICC’s announcement was welcomed by girls’s rights teams, who had known as for Khan to step down after the allegations emerged final yr.
“In another skilled setting, somebody dealing with such severe allegations would have been anticipated to step down months in the past,” stated Eimear Shine, a spokesperson for The Hague-based Ladies’s Initiatives for Gender Justice.
An investigation by The Related Press final yr discovered that two courtroom staff, in whom the alleged sufferer confided, reported the alleged misconduct in Could 2024 to the courtroom’s impartial watchdog. That was a couple of weeks earlier than Khan sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, his protection minister and three Hamas leaders on conflict crimes costs.
The watchdog stated it interviewed the girl and ended its inquiry after 5 days when she opted in opposition to submitting a proper criticism. Khan himself wasn’t questioned on the time.
Whereas the watchdog couldn’t decide wrongdoing, it nonetheless urged Khan in a memo to attenuate contact with the girl to guard the rights of all concerned and safeguard the courtroom’s integrity.
The ICC assertion on Friday stated Khan “communicated his determination to take depart till the top” of an exterior investigation being carried by the Workplace of Inside Oversight Companies, the U.N. internal watchdog.
The courtroom’s deputy prosecutors might be in command of managing the prosecutor’s workplace whereas Khan is on depart, the assertion stated.
The work of the courtroom will proceed, in accordance with Danya Chaikel, the ICC consultant from the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights. “The instances and investigations have been carried out by professionals,” she instructed the AP.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration filed sanctions in opposition to Khan in February in relation to his Israel warrants. The sanctions are hampering work on a broad array of investigations on the courtroom.