The Assembly of States Parties, which governs the International Criminal Court, on Sunday confirmed it accepted Prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement over the weekend that he would go on indefinite leave from his post until the sexual misconduct allegations against him were clarified.

Deputy ICC Prosecutors Mame Mandiaye Niang and Nazhat Shameem Khan (no relation to Karim Khan) are due to run the office during his absence, the assembly said.

This is the first time since the founding of the ICC in 2002 that the chief prosecutor was suspended due to allegations, though there have been some other alleged scandals over the years.

Khan took over the ICC’s Prosecution Office in June 2021 and mostly ignored the war crimes allegations against Israel and Hamas until the current war started. His predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, was the one to try and press forward with a criminal probe against Israel, related to the 2014 Gaza conflict and the settlements enterprise.

However, once the Israel-Hamas War began, Khan turned hard against Israel, accusing it of war crimes early on, and in May 2024, he requested the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber to approve arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three top Hamas officials (all of whom were later killed.)

(L-R): Yoav Gallant, Yahya Sinwar, and Benjamin Netanyahu at the International Court of Justice (illustrative) (credit: REUTERS/FLASH90)
(L-R): Yoav Gallant, Yahya Sinwar, and Benjamin Netanyahu at the International Court of Justice (illustrative) (credit: REUTERS/FLASH90)
Although the chamber approved the arrest warrants in November 2024 and held that the ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes charges against Israel, on April 24 of this year, the ICC Appeals Chamber sent the question of jurisdiction back to its lower court to be reevaluated.

Denouncing Israel to cover his tracks?

While some have claimed that Khan went after Israel to distract from the sexual abuse charges against him, it remains unclear whether the case against Netanyahu and Gallant will be slowed by his taking leave from his post.

At this point, much of the international community is highly critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, often without taking the time to contextualize the situation.

At the same time, Israel has been slow to release the results of its own around 90 criminal probes, hundreds of operational reviews, and over 1,000 preliminary reviews of charges against its soldiers.