Had Khan been in the Epstein Files it would never had come to this, but prosecuting Zionist Nazi war criminals is another matter.
Panel appointed by war crimes court’s governing body says UN probe has not established any ‘misconduct or breach of duty’ by chief prosecutor
Sondos Asem is a journalist and news editor at Middle East Eye in London. She is a specialist in international law, human rights and public policy in the Middle East and North Africa
Cross-posted from Middle East Eye
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Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has been cleared of all wrongdoing by a panel of judges appointed to review the findings of a United Nations investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him, Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal.
The highly confidential report by the panel of three judges was submitted to the ICC’s executive oversight body, the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), on 9 March. It will not be made publicly available, and has not been seen by the majority of the court’s 125 member states.
Since December, the judges, who were appointed by the ASP, have been examining an external fact-finding report conducted by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) into the allegations against Khan, which have unfolded in parallel with his office’s efforts to pursue a war crimes investigation against Israeli officials over the war in Gaza.
The role of the panel has been to provide independent legal advice to the bureau, based on the facts presented in the OIOS report, on whether Khan, who has strenuously denied all allegations, has committed serious misconduct, less serious misconduct, or no misconduct at all.
The unanimous conclusion of the judges is that the findings of the report “do not establish any misconduct or breach of duty,” according to two diplomatic sources who read the report and two other diplomatic sources briefed about it.
“The Panel is unanimously of the opinion that the factual findings by OIOS do not establish misconduct or breach of duty under the relevant framework,” the panel’s report concluded, according to the sources.‘
The panel’s conclusions are a significant development in the sexual misconduct investigation, which has left the court in an unprecedented state of limbo since Khan took voluntary leave last year amid uncertainty surrounding his future and leaks to the media about the allegations that he faced.
The bureau met on Monday to discuss its response to the judicial report but has yet to reach consensus on the issue. According to the ICC’s own rules, if the bureau agrees that no misconduct has been committed, the investigation should be closed.
The OIOS investigation was commissioned by the presidency of the ASP in November 2024 following media reports that a member of Khan’s office had accused him of sexual assault, and after the complainant had refused to cooperate with the ICC’s own investigative body.
Khan has been on leave since last May pending the outcome of the probe. His deputy prosecutors have been in charge of his office in his absence.
For three months, the panel of judges examined the 150-page OIOS report along with over 5,000 pages of underlying evidence. They were initially given 30 days to deliver their report. But they have been granted multiple extensions by the bureau due to the large volume of evidence.
The judges have followed the standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”, the highest standard of proof in criminal law.
The bureau has 30 days from the delivery of the panel report to indicate its preliminary assessment of the alleged misconduct. Then Khan has 30 days to respond. Then the bureau has another 30 days to make a final decision.
Karim Khan declined to comment. MEE has contacted the ASP for comment.
Sanctions and threats
The allegations of misconduct against Khan have unfolded against the backdrop of the prosecutor’s efforts to pursue an investigation against Israeli officials over alleged war crimes committed by Israeli forces in Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories.
Khan sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then defence minister Yoav Gallant in May 2024, and the court has faced a ferocious campaign by Israel and its allies, primarily the US, attempting to pressure him to drop the investigation.
Since February 2025, US President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed financial and visa sanctions on Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, six judges, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, and three Palestinian NGOs in connection with the Israel-Palestine investigation.
The US has also threatened sanctions against the court itself, which ICC officials consider a “doomsday scenario”.
ICC judges are currently examining an Israeli challenge to its jurisdiction over the Palestine situation, and a separate Israeli complaint, filed on 17 November, which seeks to disqualify the prosecutor over alleged lack of impartiality.
MEE revealed last summer that on 23 April 2024, as Khan was preparing to apply for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the then British foreign secretary David Cameron threatened in a phone call with the prosecutor that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if the court issued the warrants.
The UK’s foreign office in January confirmed a call between Cameron and Khan took place but it has declined to comment further.
In his first comment on the matter, Khan in December filed a submission to the ICC’s appeal chamber in response to an Israeli request for him to be removed from the investigation and for the warrants to be dropped, corroborating MEE’s previous reporting, which uncovered many details of efforts to undermine Khan, including Cameron’s explosive phone call.
His statement set out in detail the chronology of events that led his office to apply for warrants against the two Israelis, as well as Hamas leaders, on 20 May 2024, after months of what he described as “a meticulous process” by his office.
The allegations of sexual misconduct were first revealed to Khan in person by members of his team on 2 May 2024, the same day he was planning to announce the Netanyahu and Gallant arrest warrants, according to the timeline of events outlined in the document.
Israel alleges that Khan rushed the warrants after he was made aware of sexual misconduct allegations against him. But Khan’s statement rejected Israel’s case, describing it as being based on “a haze of ends-oriented conjecture and misleading or false assertions”, and “a miasma of speculative reporting”.
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