Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan
An ICC staff member and a former colleague who have accused ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan of sexual misconduct have spoken publicly about their allegations in televised interviews, days before member states vote on whether he should remain in office.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday, an ICC employee named Sarah spoke publicly for the first time about her allegations. The Malaysian lawyer, who worked as a special assistant to Khan between 2023 and 2024, claimed that his behavior escalated over time, gradually violating professional and personal boundaries before culminating in an alleged assault during an official trip to Colombia.Sara claimed that Khan entered her hotel room while she was pretending to be asleep and sexually assaulted her. Khan denied the allegation.It also rejected suggestions that its complaint was influenced by outside actors or linked to politically sensitive cases being considered by the court.“If there had been any hint of suspicion that I was a government agent of any kind, I would have been fired,” Sarah told CNN. “My complaint was because of what happened to me, and not for any other reason.”
A second woman, identified by the pseudonym Patricia, described alleged incidents dating back to 2009, when she worked as Khan’s intern earlier in his career. She said she was often asked to work at his home, where she was subjected to frequent unwanted physical contact and sexual harassment. Khan also denied the allegations. In her response on behalf of Khan, his lawyer, Sarita Ashraf, said that the accusations are not new, and that her client continues to reject them “in their entirety.”
She said the evidence presented publicly does not reflect the entirety of the material available to those reviewing the case, and she said the overall evidentiary record presents a different picture.The interviews were broadcast less than a week before representatives from the ICC’s 125 member states met at UN headquarters in New York for an unprecedented vote on whether Khan should be removed from office.Last month, the Executive Committee of the ICC’s governing body suspended Khan after concluding that he had committed serious misconduct in relation to Sarah’s allegations. The matter was referred to member states for a final decision.Khan’s legal team maintained that the disciplinary proceedings were politically motivated and described the process as procedurally unfair. Ashraf also questioned the timing of the interviews, noting that they were broadcast shortly before the vote even though member states already had access to evidence and testimonies collected during the investigation.Khan, who was elected in 2021 to a nine-year term, heads the ICC’s Prosecution Section, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting cases involving alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.These allegations first became public in 2024 and have continued to cast a shadow over his tenure. Khan’s representatives had previously indicated that the allegations were aimed at undermining him following his decision to seek arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the then-Israeli Defense Minister.However, documents reviewed by The Guardian indicate that the disciplinary process found no evidence to support allegations that Sarah was acting on behalf of third parties or intelligence agencies.