ICC CHIEF PROSECUTOR (KARIM KHAN) been threaten by israeli lobby over natanyahu arrest warrants

Defence affairs analysis

Already targeted by US sanctions, the ICC chief prosecutor’s pursuit of Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders now threatens his career, his reputation, and the future of the court itself

A major Middle East Eye investigation has uncovered extraordinary details of an intensifying intimidation campaign targeting the British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court over his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes.

The campaign has involved threats and warnings directed at Karim Khan by prominent figures, close colleagues and family friends briefing against him, fears for the prosecutor’s safety prompted by a Mossad team in The Hague, and media leaks about sexual assault allegations.

It has taken place against the backdrop of Khan’s efforts to build and pursue a case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over their conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion and violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank.

Last month, Middle East Eye revealed that Khan was warned in May that if the arrest warrants issued last year for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant were not withdrawn, he and the ICC would be destroyed.

The warning was delivered by Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli defence lawyer at the court, during a meeting with Khan and his wife, Shyamala Alagendra, at a hotel in The Hague