This is not the first time that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has found itself at the heart of controversy. His prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested an international arrest warrant for Hamas leaders on Monday, but also from the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, for crimes such as “deliberate starvation of civilians”, “intentional homicide” and “extermination and/or murder”. A decision taken as part of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
A request motivated by “findings” of a “widespread and systematic attack directed against the Palestinian civilian population in pursuit of the policy of an organization”, affirmed Karim Khan. He also stressed the need for his office to be able to work “in complete independence and impartiality”, and called for “immediately to cease” attempts aimed at hindering, intimidating or influencing employees of the jurisdiction.
The lawyer specializing in international law has since been the subject of numerous criticism. He went from being Israel’s “favorite” candidate to his 2021 election (according to an article in Times of Israel) to the prosecutor who brought “historic dishonor” to the ICC, according to Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
Prestigious London studies
If Paris affirmed to support the ICC in this initiative, some in France criticized Karim Khan’s announcement. Bruno Benjaminhonorary president of Crif, wonders whether Karim Khan, “a Pakistani Muslim”, can be “neutral” on the subject of the conflict between Israel and Hamas because of his origins and his religion.
Karim Khan was born in Scotland in 1970 to a Pakistani father and a British mother. He grew up in Great Britain and studied law – prestigious – at King’s College London, which led him to a career as a lawyer in 1992, before becoming a Crown prosecutor from 1993 to 1996, and finally to successfully launch into international law in 1997.
A solid career in international law
With nearly thirty years at the bar before international courts, Karim Khan has built a solid reputation on all sides of the courtroom. First on the prosecution side, notably as legal advisor to the office of prosecutors of the United Nations international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He then moved to the other side of the bar. Among others, he was the lawyer of the Kenyan William Ruto, prosecuted for crimes against humanity and acquitted, of the former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, and of a son of the former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi. Karim Khan was also able to practice defending civil parties, on the victims’ side, during the trial of Khmer Rouge torturer “Douch”.
Karim Khan is “one of the most experienced and successful lawyers, combining courage and vision”, estimated Carsten Stahn, professor of international criminal law at the Dutch University of Leiden, in 2021, interviewed by AFP. “The fact that he has defended both high-profile defendants and victims, and that he has represented the prosecution, provides him with a unique position to meet the challenges that await him [à la CPI] “, he added.
Enemies in Russia and ISIS
Before being elected in 2021 as ICC prosecutor, succeeding Gambian Fatou Bensouda (also controversial for one of her investigations into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), Khan was the head of a special UN investigation on the crimes committed by Daesh in Iraq (Unitad). Investigation which made it possible to collect proof that “a genocide was committed by IS against the Yazidis as a religious group”, announced the person concerned on May 10, 2021.
Before the leaders of Hamas (including Yahya Sinouar) or Israel, Karim Khan has already requested an arrest warrant from the ICC against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, presidential commissioner for children’s rights in Russia, for the “forced displacement” of thousands of Ukrainian minors. A decision that deserves to be, Today, placed on the wanted list in Russia.
Of a persecuted minority of Islam
Several voices, notably the CNews channel, criticize him for having punctuated an introduction in the ICC 2022 annual report with the expression “Inch Allah”, which can be translated as “if God willing”. In this report available onlineKarim Khan writes: “I undertake to always tell them the pure and simple truth, insha Allah”.
Our file on the war in Israel and Hamas
Karim Khan belongs to the Muslim current of Ahmadism or Ahmadiyya, a persecuted minority, especially in Algeriaand declared a sect unrelated to Islam in 1973 by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), according to France Info. In the 1980s, its practice became more than limited in Pakistan, reports elsewhere Le Figaro. There has been an Ahmadiyya community in the United Kingdom since those years, Pakistan being a former British colony.