The International Criminal Court has announced an external investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct against its chief prosecutor.<\/p>\n
Karim Khan said he would engage in the process and continue in his role while the investigation was ongoing. He denies the allegations.<\/p>\n
The chief prosecutor had requested an investigation by the court\u2019s watchdog, but on Monday the ICC\u2019s governing body said it would pursue an \u201cexternal investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The announcement followed media reports about a document outlining accusations against Mr Khan, understood to include unwanted sexual touching and \u201cabuse\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Mr Khan said he \u201chad previously called for an investigation in relation to this matter\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI welcome the opportunity to engage in this process,\u201d he said, adding he would continue \u201call other functions as prosecutor\u201d while the investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n
Any issues relevant to the investigation into allegations against him would be handled by deputy prosecutors not reporting to him, \u201cso as to ensure that the rights of all persons are fully respected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to the Guardian newspaper, a female lawyer who claims to have been subjected to unwanted sexual advances by Mr Khan had raised concerns about the competence of the Independent Oversight Mechanism (IOM), the ICC\u2019s watchdog.<\/p>\n
The paper also reported that Khan responded to a formal sexual misconduct complaint against him by trying to persuade the alleged victim that she should deny the claims, despite having been advised to avoid one-to-one contact.<\/p>\n
Mr Khan denied asking the woman to withdraw any allegations, the Guardian reported.<\/p>\n
Paivi Kaukoranta, the president of the body charged with overseeing the court, last month said the IOM had been in contact with the alleged victim, but said it was not in a position to proceed with an investigation at that stage.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Monday, she defended the IOM\u2019s ability to carry out the investigation but said that \u201cgiven the particular circumstances,\u201d she did not object to \u201cexceptionally resorting to an external investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn external investigation is therefore being pursued in order to ensure a fully independent, impartial and fair process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It comes amid intense scrutiny of the ICC and Mr Khan after the prosecutor\u2019s request for arrest warrants linked to the conflict in Gaza.<\/p>\n
In May, Mr Khan said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahiya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh bore criminal responsibility for war crimes against humanity from the day of Hama\u2019s attack on Israel on 7 October onwards.<\/p>\n
Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh have all since been killed by Israel.<\/p>\n
In an earlier statement, Mr Khan did not explicitly blame Israel, but did juxtapose the sexual misconduct allegations and efforts to undermine his position when he described this as \u201ca moment in which myself and the International Criminal Court are subject to a wide range of attacks and threat\u201d.<\/p>\n
But the sexual misconduct allegations are understood to pre-date his request for arrest warrants linked to the conflict in Gaza.<\/p>\n
A panel of three ICC judges is currently considering the arrest warrants requested by Mr Khan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The post ICC announces investigation into chief prosecutor<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post ICC announces investigation into chief prosecutor<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The International Criminal Court has announced an external investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct against its chief prosecutor. Karim Khan said he would engage in the process and continue in his role while the investigation was ongoing. He denies the allegations. The chief prosecutor had requested an investigation by the court\u2019s watchdog, but on Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}