The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, has been suspended from his post, in a significant development for one of the world's most prominent international judicial institutions. The decision removes, at least temporarily, the official who leads the court's investigations and prosecutions, and who has been a central figure in some of its highest-profile cases.
The move came from within the court's own structures. The ICC's governing body took the decision after the conclusion of disciplinary proceedings against Khan. Its executive committee voted to refer the case against him onward, sending it to a special session of the court's member states for further consideration rather than resolving it internally.
At the heart of the case is an allegation of misconduct. Khan is accused of sexual harassment, with the accusation having been made by a woman who worked for him at the court's headquarters in The Hague. The claim concerns conduct within the institution itself, placing the prosecutor's own behaviour under the kind of scrutiny he has directed at others.
Khan has consistently rejected the allegations. He has repeatedly denied the accusations, which first emerged in 2024. The dispute has therefore been unfolding for some time, but it is the recent disciplinary process and the decision to escalate the matter that have now brought it to a head.
What happens next will be decided collectively by the court's membership. The case will be considered by the 125 member states of the ICC, a process that could ultimately lead to a vote on his removal. That stage gives the states that underpin the court a direct say in the fate of its top prosecutor.
The timing of the allegations has drawn particular attention. The accusations against the prosecutor surfaced two weeks before he announced that he was seeking arrest warrants against high-ranking officials. That sequence has fed scrutiny of the affair, given how consequential his work at the court has been during the same period.
Khan's tenure has been closely tied to some of the most sensitive cases on the court's docket, including those connected to the war in Ukraine. As chief prosecutor he repeatedly visited Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, and it was under his leadership that the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, and for the Russian children's ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova. His suspension now leaves a cloud over the office responsible for pursuing those and other cases.