Who is Karim Khan, the barrister at the center of the ICC's internal crisis?

ADVERTISEMENT Filtered By: Topstories News By STEPHANIE VAN DEN BERG, Reuters Published July 25, 2026 6:40am + Add GMA on Google Make this your preferred source to get more updates from this publisher on Google. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks with Reuters at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/ Christian Levaux/ File THE HAGUE - Karim Khan became one of the best-known international prosecutors in May 2024 when he announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, inserting the International Criminal Court into a confrontation with the United States.

ICC member states dismissed Khan on Friday over allegations of sexual misconduct, two diplomatic sources told Reuters, in a vote at United Nations headquarters in New York. He has long faced criticism and endured political wrangling.His first turn in the international media limelight was as defense lawyer during the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

On the opening day of the trial in 2007, Khan dramatically walked out of the courtroom against judges' orders after announcing Taylor had fired him. Other Stories International Criminal Court members dismiss prosecutor Khan over sexual misconduct allegation Mamdani says NYC can't arrest Netanyahu on ICC warrant, urges feds to do so Netherlands will support the removal of ICC prosecutor Karim Khan Born in Edinburgh to a Pakistani dermatologist and a British nurse, Khan, 56, studied law in London.He spent his early career in the UK prosecution service before becoming a legal adviser for the Office of the Prosecutor for the United Nations ad hoc war crimes tribunals for both the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda between 1997 and 2001.

Khan subsequently worked on ICC cases on Kenya, Sudan and Libya. He won dismissal of the case against Kenya's President William Ruto for post-election violence.While he was the head of a UN team investigating Islamic State crimes in Iraq, Khan applied to become ICC prosecutor.

An outsider candidate who did not make the shortlist, he won the job in 2021 after a campaign marked by intense political lobbying by the UK and African states.When he took office, he traveled frequently to countries where the ICC was investigating, including Ukraine, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.In 2023, the court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which resulted in Khan being convicted in a 2025 in-absentia trial in Russia.

Khan, who is a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, had made pursuing perpetrators of sexual crimes and defending the rights of children focal points in his time as ICC prosecutor.In his speeches, Khan often stressed that he seeks to apply the law equally and fairly across all situations.Rodrigo Duterte caseAs ICC chief prosecutor in June 2021, Khan oversaw the investigation into the alleged extrajudicial killings during the war on drugs of then president Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines.

In March 2025, Khan welcomed the arrest and transfer of Duterte to The Hague, saying that it is an “important development” in the pursuit of accountability for alleged crimes against humanity during his administration’s bloody drug war.In August 2025, Duterte's defense team asked the Appeals Chamber of the ICC to disqualify Khan from the case on the ground that he "failed to disclose a grievous conflict of interest."The former president’s defense team, led then by Nicholas Kaufman, claimed that Khan had previously represented the alleged victims of the Duterte administration’s drug war as a private lawyer and ''seemingly exploited'' the information he had gathered when he became chief ICC prosecutor in June 2021.

On August 18, 2025, Khan opposed the request to disqualify him from the case and maintained there was no conflict of interest on his part. In October 2025, ICC appeals judges disqualified Khan from the war crimes case against Duterte due to a possible conflict of interest, according to a copy of the decision seen by Reuters.READ: Why was ICC prosecutor Karim Khan disqualified from Duterte’s case?

Backlash over Netanyahu warrantsIn May 2024, Khan announced he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu."No one can act with impunity," Khan said in a video announcing the warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The warrants, which ICC judges confirmed later that year, caused pushback not only from Israel and the United States but also from some ICC member states such as Italy and Hungary.

The US has since imposed sanctions on 11 court officials, including Khan, and on several non-governmental organizations working with the court on the Gaza case.Amid the pressure on the court and Khan over the decision to seek arrest warrants, news broke in October 2024 that a junior lawyer in Khan's office had alleged sexual misconduct by Khan.Khan has denied the allegations but went on leave in May 2025 because he said media scrutiny made it