Gambiaj.com – (NEW YORK, United States) – For the first time in its 24-year history, the International Criminal Court has voted to remove its own chief prosecutor from office. Member states of the court gathered on Friday at United Nations Headquarters in New York for a closed-door emergency session that ended in a secret ballot.
When the votes were counted, 82 of the court’s 125 member states had voted to dismiss prosecutor Karim Khan, comfortably clearing the 63 votes needed for removal. Thirteen states voted against his removal, while 15 abstained.
Khan, a 56-year-old British barrister, has led the court since 2021. His downfall follows nearly two years of allegations that he sexually abused a member of his own staff, a woman who worked closely under him at the court based in The Hague.
Announcing the result, the President of the Assembly of States Parties, Päivi Kaukoranta, told member states that the 82 states had found the prosecutor had “committed serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty” by engaging in “prohibited conduct against a subordinate staff member.”
Khan has consistently denied any wrongdoing. He first stepped back from his duties temporarily in May 2025 pending an internal investigation, and was formally suspended in June by the court’s 21-member Bureau.
According to documents seen by the Associated Press, investigators found that Khan had engaged in a sexual relationship with the woman and tried to prevent her from pursuing her allegations, findings he continues to dispute.
His legal team fought hard to keep him in the job. In an open letter circulated this week, his lawyers urged member states not to vote for his removal, arguing his right to a fair defence had not been properly respected.
Following the vote, his lead counsel, Tayab Ali, said he regretted that the Assembly had disregarded concerns raised by more than 180 rights groups and legal experts, insisting the decision was “unsupported by any lawful or properly reasoned finding” that Khan had committed misconduct.
Khan’s team has also framed the case in political terms. His lawyers point out that the prosecutor was pushed out at a time when many ICC officials remain under sanctions from Washington and that the disciplinary process gathered pace only after Khan sought arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza.
Indeed, it was under Khan’s watch that the ICC made some of its most consequential, and most controversial, decisions. In 2024, he secured international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over the conduct of the war in Gaza.
The court issued parallel warrants for Hamas leaders, who have since been killed. Those actions drew fierce criticism from Israel and the United States and triggered US sanctions against Khan and several other court officials.
Notably, his removal does not undo any of that work. The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant remain in force since only ICC judges, not the prosecutor, have the power to withdraw them.
With Khan now gone, attention turns to who will succeed him. The removal takes immediate effect, and the Assembly of States Parties will now begin the process of electing a new prosecutor, though a replacement is not expected to be confirmed before next year.
For an institution that has spent two decades positioning itself as the world’s court of last resort for atrocity crimes, Friday’s vote marks an uncomfortable moment of reckoning, one that has exposed deep divisions among its own member states over accountability, due process, and the politics swirling around some of its most high-profile cases.
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