Member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) voted on Friday by a majority to remove Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan over misconduct claims, during a special session at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
According to diplomatic sources, 82 out of the court's 125 members voted by a secret ballot to dismiss the prosecutor, surpassing the absolute majority threshold needed for removal.
It is the first time in the ICC's 24-year history that member states have voted to remove a sitting chief prosecutor from office.
Friday's vote comes shortly following extraordinary threats by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Washington would "dismantle the ICC - brick by brick, if necessary," while most of the court’s judges and prosecutors, including Khan, have been sanctioned by the US over their work on the Palestine and Afghanistan war crimes investigations.
The disciplinary process against Khan emerged in the wake of his decision to seek arrest warrants over two years ago for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders, over alleged war crimes committed during the war in Gaza since October 2023.
The vote also comes amid questions and criticism about the ASP Bureau's handling of the investigation, particularly over concerns that the process has been “politicised” after the opinion of the judges’ panel, which unanimously found that no wrongdoing had been established, was disregarded by bureau member states.
More than 180 Palestinian civil society organisations and rights groups signed a statement last week arguing that the disciplinary process "has been reduced to a political referendum following the national interests of individual States Parties".
