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The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has been removed after a vote by member states, following an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.
Karim Khan, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, will not be allowed to return to the court, the ICC said on Friday following a vote in New York by its 125 members. Khan has been on leave since May 2025.
In the unprecedented vote, 82 countries voted in favour of dismissing Khan following a closed-door session.
The decision follows a contentious process that has lasted for more than two years in which multiple investigations were opened and closed.
It also comes after the US this month announced a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed” by the ICC, where senior figures were subject to American sanctions over arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders.
Khan is barred from entering the US under those sanctions and was not present at the meeting in New York.
Khan was found to have “committed serious misconduct” and a “serious breach of duty”, Päivi Kaukoranta, president of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties, said on Friday.
She said the conduct related to an “internal workplace complaint of prohibited conduct . . . against a subordinate staff member”.
Khan’s legal team said the process had not been fair and he planned to challenge the decision.
“No independent or judicial body has ever found the case against Mr Khan proved,” said Khan’s lawyer, Tayab Ali. “An executive vote cannot turn allegations into proven facts.”
Tayab said Khan and his legal team had not been allowed to address the assembly that voted to remove him and the decision had been made “at a time when the [ICC] is under sustained pressure from states that object to its work”.
The allegations first emerged in May 2024 when a report was made to the ICC’s independent oversight mechanism.
However, a third party made the complaint and the affected woman, who worked at the court, refused to confirm or deny the allegations, so the matter was initially dropped, the IOM said last year.
A second investigation was opened and closed for the same reason in October 2024, with the ICC then referring the matter to a UN body to investigate.
Following the investigation, and despite Khan claiming in an April interview that he had been “exonerated”, he was formally suspended in June. His alleged victim, who said she still worked at the ICC, set out her claims of harassment and unwanted touching in an interview with CNN this month, which Khan denied.
Khan has also been suspended from practising as a barrister in his home country of the UK.
The process has taken place at a time of broader contention over the court, following Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defence minister Yoav Gallant, alongside Hamas’s leaders, in May 2024.
The US and Israel are not members of the court. Washington this month said it would urge nations that belong to the institution to withdraw, threatening those that refused with “increased scrutiny”. It also said it would revoke visas and impose travel bans on ICC personnel.
