Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), shook the international political scene on Monday (20) when he requested arrest warrants from the court against the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister. , Yoav Gallant, and leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, such as Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.
The request against the Israeli authorities was criticized by the United States and Germany, which highlighted the “false equivalence” made by the prosecutor between the State of Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. American President Joe Biden emphasized in a statement that “there is no possible comparison between Israel and Hamas” and a German government spokesman said that “the simultaneous request for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders, on the one hand, and against the two Israeli officials, on the other, gave the false impression of equivalence.”
According to information from international agencies, Karim Khan is known worldwide for being considered “fearless”. It was his request to the ICC that culminated in the arrest warrants against the dictator Vladimir Putin, of Russia, and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, in 2023, for the case involving the forced transfer of Ukrainian minors to Russian territory .
The prosecutor is also responsible for investigations that are currently underway involving crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Of Pakistani descent, Khan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1970. According to information from the Israeli portal Ynet, the prosecutor is a member of a Muslim community called Ahmadi, which preaches a more moderate version of Islam. He holds a law degree from King’s College London, specializing in international criminal law and international human rights law and began his professional journey in the 1990s.
Between 1993 and 1996, Khan served as a prosecutor in the British Attorney General’s Office. Later, in 1998, he began working on the international stage as a legal consultant in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. After that, he served as legal advisor in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda until the 2000s.
The current ICC prosecutor was part of the defense team of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor during his trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Taylor was sentenced in 2012 to 50 years in prison by the court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In addition to defending Taylor, Khan was also a lawyer for Saif al-Islam Muammar Gaddafi, who is the son of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator who was killed in 2011. Saif al-Islam was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity committed during the revolution that he overthrew his father, but was amnestied in 2016.
Khan was elected as ICC Chief Prosecutor in 2021 for a nine-year term. Before his election to the ICC position, he served as an investigator for the office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, being responsible for analyzing crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic State in Iraq.
At the ICC, Khan succeeded Fatou Bensouda, who held the position from 2012 to 2021, and continued the investigations against Israel that she initiated in early 2021, related to alleged crimes occurring in Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip.
In his order issued on Monday, the prosecutor emphasized that although Israel “has the right to self-defense, its actions in Gaza are ‘criminal’ and are not exempt from complying with international humanitarian law.”
According to the The New York Timescritics of Khan’s request accused the prosecutor of having reacted slowly in the analysis and investigation of the crimes committed by Hamas during its terrorist attack against Israel in October 2023, which triggered the current war in Gaza.
Khan’s request was condemned by Israeli authorities. Netanyahu, the target of the prosecutor, classified the ICC request as “absurd.”
“I reject the Hague prosecutor’s repulsive comparison between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas,” said the Israeli prime minister.
In April, Netanyahu had already said that, under his leadership, “Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court to undermine its basic right to defend itself.”
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister, also the target of the arrest warrant, said on his X account (formerly Twitter) that “the parallel he [Khan] drawn between the terrorist organization Hamas and the State of Israel is despicable.”
In turn, the terrorist group Hamas reacted to the request for arrest against its leaders by accusing Khan of “comparing the victim with the executioner” and claiming that his request was “without legal basis”.
Despite Khan’s act, Israel does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction over the country, which did not sign the Rome Statute, which created the court.
Khan’s requests for arrest warrants against members of the Israeli government and Hamas leaders will now be evaluated by a group of ICC judges, who will decide whether or not the court should issue international arrest orders against those involved. According to the German government spokesman, who criticized Khan’s action, the ICC will have the “difficult task of evaluating very different cases”.
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