The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor announced his intention to seek an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu within weeks of being informed that he was the subject of a sexual assault allegation, a new report has claimed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Karim Khan made the decision to charge the Israeli leader with war crimes just before the accusations, made by a fellow lawyer, became public.
Khan, who has served as the court’s lead prosecutor since 2021, is accused of participating in “coerced sexual intercourse” with a colleague.
The woman, a Malaysian lawyer, told the Journal that she had asked to meet Khan is order to discuss the manner in which he treated his staff, which she suggested was inappropriate.
However, she claimed that, when she arrived in his suite at the Millennium Hilton Hotel in New York, he “took her hand and eventually pulled her to the bed”.
"Then he pulled off her pants and forced sexual intercourse,” the report added.
The woman alleged that Khan performed “non-consensual sex acts” on her on multiple occasions in a number of countries, including the US, Colombia, France and Chad, as well as at his wife’s home in the Netherlands.
An investigation is currently underway, conducted by the court’s external watchdog, the Independent Oversight Mechanism, with Khan firmly maintaining his innocence.
It was reportedly less than three weeks after Khan was informed of the allegations against him that he announced he would seek to secure warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant – which the ICC later granted.
The Journal added: “The timing of the announcement has spurred questions about whether Khan was aiming to protect himself from the sexual-assault allegations.
"The day before announcing the warrant application, Khan abruptly cancelled a trip to Israel and Gaza that he had previously said was important to make his decision.”
Khan’s lawyers have called the allegations of sexual misconduct “categorically untrue” and denied any link between them and the decision to seek the warrants.
However, this is not the first time Khan has been accused of making similar announcements to advance his own agenda.
According to a report in The Guardian last month, he is seeking further warrants against Israeli officials but has been prohibited from revealing them publicly as his previous pronouncements were alleged to place undue pressure on ICC judges to grant them.
It comes after Khan was accused of retaliating against members of his staff who either reported the alleged sexual misconduct or criticised his handling of the claims.
Citing “five sources briefed on the matter”, Reuters reported that the senior prosecutor had demoted at least four staff members in relation to the incident – an accusation which he has denied.
In a statement to Reuters, Khan’s lawyers reiterated his denial of the allegations and said he “looks forward to cooperating fully and transparently with the external investigation”.
