After sexual-misconduct allegations, International Criminal Court member countries voted to dismiss chief prosecutor Karim Khan. The Assembly of States Parties took the decision almost two years after the claims emerged, ending Khan's tenure and initiating the process to elect a replacement.
Khan, a 56-year-old British barrister, denied wrongdoing. He had stepped aside in June after an oversight review concluded that he had committed serious misconduct. An accuser identified publicly only as Sarah alleged escalating unwanted touching and groping, including an incident in which she said Khan touched her intimately while she pretended to sleep.
His legal team disputed both the evidence and fairness of the removal. Lawyer Tayab Ali said a judicial panel had found that the UN internal-oversight inquiry failed to prove either misconduct or dereliction of duty under the applicable framework. Ali argued that member states nevertheless removed Khan through an executive vote without a fair hearing.
The conflicting descriptions concerned different parts of the process and did not amount to a criminal conviction. The assembly's employment decision removed the prosecutor from office, while Khan continued to deny the underlying allegations. The supplied reporting did not describe any criminal charge arising from them.
Deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang assumed leadership of the prosecutor's office. The ICC said investigations and prosecutions would continue across all situations within its jurisdiction. A successor election was not expected before 2027.
The vote occurred while the court and several officials faced US sanctions. Khan had sought arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged crimes in Gaza. His lawyers said those political pressures made procedural safeguards especially important. Israeli officials, by contrast, used the dismissal to attack the credibility of the Gaza case.
Khan's removal did not cancel the warrants. Only ICC judges can withdraw them, and the decision by member states to dismiss the prosecutor had no automatic effect on existing judicial orders. Palestinian representatives also rejected efforts to treat a personnel case as proof that the separate Palestine investigation was illegitimate.
The immediate institutional effect was a leadership transition rather than an end to the court's work. The episode left member states to choose a new prosecutor while the ICC managed the misconduct dispute, external sanctions and politically sensitive cases without conflating the allegations against Khan with rulings made by its judges.
The dispute also demonstrated the ICC’s unusual governance structure. Prosecutorial independence protects case decisions, while the Assembly of States Parties retains authority over senior appointments and removal. Exercising that authority amid contested findings required the institution to defend both accountability and procedural legitimacy.
