ICC top prosecutor removed over sexual misconduct allegations

ICC top prosecutor removed over sexual misconduct allegationsImage source, ReutersImage caption, Karim Khan denies all the allegations against himByAnna Holligan, The Hague correspondent and Robert GreenallPublished4 minutes agoMembers of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have voted to dismiss Karim Khan as chief prosecutor for alleged sexual misconduct.Elected the ICC's third prosecutor in 2021, Khan was suspended last month. The decision to removehim was passed with 82 votes in favour.The court's oversight body found in June he had committed a "serious breach of duty and serious misconduct" by engaging in an improper sexual relationship with a junior ICC staff member and seeking to stop her pursuing her complaint.Khan has repeatedly denied all the allegations against him.His lawyers have described his suspension as "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 put the institution under a glaring spotlight, intensified divisions inside it and played out alongside an unprecedented campaign to weaken, and in fact dismantle, the ICC in its entirety.The fear among its supporters is that the court will emerge weakened and less able to face the gravest global threats.Khan, a prominent British lawyer, has been on voluntary leave to fight the allegations since May 2025. He remains suspended from practising law in the UK, after the Bar Standards Board imposed an interim ban while it conducts its own inquiry.He was unable to attend the vote, held in the United Nations headquarters in New York, because he is barred from entering the United States under sanctions imposed by the Trump administration over the ICC's investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli officials in Gaza.Regardless of his removal, the controversy is unlikely to end there.The decision follows...