The bold step to pursue the Israeli leader for war crimes built support at the international court for prosecutor Karim Khan as allegations of sexual abuse were surfacing. Khan denies any misconduct.
Two months after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, pressure was mounting on Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as he considered charges against Israeli officials for their conduct of the war in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian activists who had labeled him a “genocide enabler” and a bloc of ICC member countries in the developing world insisted that action was long overdue, pushing Khan into conflict with Israel’s staunch allies in Washington and other Western capitals.
Khan, a hard-charging British lawyer, was in New York in early December 2023 for the court’s governing body meeting at United Nations headquarters. Stung by the criticism, the 55-year-old prosecutor was increasingly lashing out at his team, according to ICC officials.
One assistant, a woman in her 30s who often traveled with him for her job, asked to meet with Khan to urge him to ease up. He called her that evening to his corner suite high in the Millennium Hilton hotel next to the U.N.
There, she said in testimony to U.N. officials, Khan began to touch her sexually, a pattern of behavior that she said had been going on for months.
She said she attempted to leave the room several times, but he took her hand and eventually pulled her to the bed. Then he pulled off her pants and forced sexual intercourse, according to the testimony.