The State of Israel on Monday submitted today to the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) a request to disqualify the Court's Prosecutor, Karim Khan, from involvement in proceedings concerning Israel, the Foreign Ministry announced.
Additionally, Israel requested that the Court cancel the arrest warrants issued by the Prosecutor against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, which the Foreign Ministry said were “baseless”.
“The request was submitted following information and grave reports raising serious concern that the Prosecutor acted out of improper personal motives to advance false and unfounded allegations against Israel,” said the Foreign Ministry’s statement. “These actions were intended to divert public attention from severe accusations against him of serial sexual harassment of a subordinate employee. In this context, the Prosecutor advanced baseless and outrageous warrants against the Prime Minister and the former Minister of Defense of a democratic state.”
The statement continued, “The State of Israel emphasizes that the contamination of the proceedings caused by the Prosecutor's conduct is profound and irreparable. Therefore, Israel requests that the Court's Appeals Chamber disqualify the Prosecutor from involvement in cases relating to Israel and to declare that the arrest warrants issued against the Prime Minister and the former Minister of Defense are of no force or effect.”
The Foreign Ministry noted that the request in no way affects Israel's other claims regarding the invalidity of the warrants, including due to the Court's lack of jurisdiction.
Khan faces allegations of inappropriate behavior toward a staff member, which he strongly disputes. In August, a second complaint was filed against Khan.
The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Khan announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant within three weeks of the first accusations of sexual harassment against him, further fueling the accusations that the warrants were politically motivated.
While Khan stopped short of directly accusing Israel of being behind the allegations, his public denial mentioned that he and the ICC have been the targets of “a wide range of recent attacks and threats” in recent months.
However, a months-long investigation by The Guardian found no evidence of Israeli or other foreign involvement in the core allegations against Khan.