Member states of the International Criminal Court voted on July 24 to remove the chief prosecutor over allegations of sexual abuse, but his career was also marked by an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Karim Khan, a 56-year-old British lawyer who became the third chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC, based in The Hague) in 2021, was dismissed on July 24, 2026, after 82 of 125 member states voted for his removal at a special session at UN headquarters in New York. Thirteen states voted against the removal, while 15 abstained. The dismissal comes at the end of a lengthy process that revealed deep divisions within the only permanent war crimes institution at the global level.
Khan was born in Edinburgh to a Pakistani dermatologist father and a British nurse mother, and studied law in London. He began his career in the British prosecution system and from 1997 to 2001 worked as a legal advisor for UN ad hoc tribunals for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He first gained international attention as a defense lawyer at the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes: at the first hearing in 2007, he dramatically left the courtroom, contrary to judges' orders, announcing that Taylor had fired him. He later worked on ICC cases related to Kenya, Sudan, and Libya, and particularly distinguished himself by securing the acquittal of Kenyan President William Ruto, whose indictment for post-election violence he managed to have dismissed. He also led the UN investigation into crimes committed by the Islamic State in Iraq.
Khan was elected ICC prosecutor in 2021, with intense lobbying from the United Kingdom and African states. In May 2024, he announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. 'No one can act with impunity,' Khan said in a video message announcing the request. ICC judges confirmed these warrants in late 2024, but the move drew strong reactions not only from Israel and the US, but also from some ICC member states such as Italy and Hungary. The US then imposed sanctions on 11 ICC officials, including Khan, which prevented him from even attending the vote on his own dismissal because he was banned from entering the United States. Russia, meanwhile, convicted Khan in absentia in 2025, in response to the arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin that the ICC had issued in 2023.
Alongside the political pressures, in May 2024 a third party reported allegations to the ICC of sexual abuse by Khan against a female junior employee. The ICC's Independent Oversight Mechanism (IOM) launched an investigation, but it was closed after the alleged victim refused to participate. Critics claimed the investigation was poorly handled. A second report was filed in October 2024, and the case was taken over by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which from November 2024 to December 2025 collected over 5,000 pages of evidence and testimony. The ICC's Executive Office concluded on June 8, 2026, that Khan had committed a 'serious breach of duty and serious misconduct' by entering into an inappropriate sexual relationship with a female junior employee and attempting to prevent her from filing a complaint. Khan had been on voluntary leave since May 2025, and the UK's Bar Standards Board imposed a temporary ban on his legal practice in the United Kingdom.
Khan consistently denied all allegations. His lawyer announced that they would 'challenge the legality and fairness of the decision through all available legal mechanisms,' but it was not immediately clear what legal options remained for the dismissed prosecutor. Khan and his lawyers have suggested in recent interviews that the allegations could be part of a political campaign by Israel and its allies, which UN investigators have dismissed. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said: 'He tried to sacrifice Israel to divert attention from his own misconduct. The international community rejected that cynical attempt today.' France, the Netherlands, and Norway publicly supported the dismissal. The vote triggers the election of a new prosecutor, while the ICC's statement emphasizes that the court 'will continue to give utmost importance to maintaining a safe, inclusive, and respectful working environment for all staff.'
The Karim Khan case unfolds at a time of extraordinary pressure on the ICC as an institution. The US, which is not an ICC member, launched a campaign in early July 2026 to dismantle the court 'brick by brick,' threatening visa bans, asset freezes, and diplomatic pressure on allied states to withdraw from the court or reject its jurisdiction. Russia and Israel are also not ICC members, but the court can exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of member states. Concerned observers warn that the Khan scandal, combined with external pressures, could permanently weaken the institution established to prosecute the most serious crimes at the global level.
