World
ICC members vote to dismiss embattled prosecutor behind Netanyahu arrest warrant
International Criminal Court member states voted Friday to dismiss prosecutor Karim Khan, diplomatic sources said, following allegations that he sexually assaulted a female member of his staff.
Khan, 56, was suspended last month by a key governing body of the ICC ahead of Friday’s secret ballot in which 82 of 125 members voted to remove him. The motion required an absolute majority.
According to the sources, only 13 states voted for Khan to stay in his post during the closed-door session at the UN headquarters in New York. A further 15 members abstained, while some did not attend the vote.
In May 2025, Khan stepped back from his duties to fight the allegations made by one of his female colleagues after an inquiry was launched the previous year.
The alleged victim, a Malaysian lawyer who worked as Khan’s direct assistant, gave her account of what happened in an interview last week with CNN.
The woman, who asked to be identified by her first name Sarah, described “an escalation of attempts” that resulted in physical assault.
“There is no way for something to be consensual when you have such a power disparity,” she told CNN. “What I think many people don’t understand is that Mr Khan was not just my boss, he was everyone’s boss.”
Khan, who has been in the job since 2021, categorically denies the accusations.
Israel: Khan’s removal a long time coming
In an open letter published this week on X, Khan’s attorneys called on ICC member states not to remove him, saying that no wrongdoing had been proven.
They also warned the vote could endanger the independence of future prosecutors, an apparent reference to Khan’s headline-grabbing cases.
In 2024, he successfully applied for arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over the Gaza war.
The ICC, which is based in The Hague, also issued warrants for the arrest of several key leaders of Hamas, who have since been killed.
Khan was the target of US sanctions over the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, as were several ICC judges.
Khan’s removal will have no immediate impact on the arrest warrants in 2024 for Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes against humanity, which can only be withdrawn by ICC judges. Israel vehemently denies the charges against it.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar tweeted Friday that Khan’s removal was “long-delayed” and said the arrest warrants were “an attempt to deflect from the serious misconduct he feared would be revealed.”
“These warrants, issued against a country that is not even a member of the ICC, should never have been sought in the first place and should be revoked immediately,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a campaign against the ICC, threatening more sanctions and accusing it of posing “an intolerable threat to US sovereignty.”
Hours after the vote, Venezuela announced it would withdraw from the court. “Venezuela considers that the Court’s actions reflect a demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South,” Félix Plasencia, the country’s foreign affairs minister, announced in a statement.
Earlier this year, prosecutors at the court announced they were dropping an investigation into whether US sanctions against Venezuela qualified as crimes against humanity, citing a lack of evidence. A separate investigation into possible crimes committed by Venezuelan security forces under former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro will continue.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
