THE HAGUE: When Karim Khan was sworn in as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he said the court should be ‘judged by its actions’. He stated, “the proof of the pudding should be in the eating.”

By seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Hamas figures, Khan has shown he is ‘not afraid to take on the world’s most controversial cases’.

The application followed an arrest warrant issued last year for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which promptly ‘slapped arrest warrants on Khan himself’.

The 54-year-old ‘Brit’ has faced controversy throughout his professional career, which has included stints of defending Liberia’s former president, Charles Taylor against allegations of ‘war crimes’, in Sierra Leone. Other high-profile clients included Kenya’s President ‘William Ruto’, in a ‘crimes-against-humanity’ case at the ICC which was eventually dropped, as well as the son of the late Libyan leader, Moamer Qadhafi (Seif al-Islam).

When asked about “crossing the floor” working as both prosecutor and defence, Khan told specialist publication OpinioJuris that it helps lawyers stay “grounded.” In addition to this it prevents “corrosive traits such as thinking that defence counsel is the devil incarnate or that as a prosecutor you are doing ‘God’s work’” he said.

Although being criticised initially for ‘not acting fast enough to prevent atrocities in Gaza’, Khan touched off a firestorm, when he put forth applications for arrest warrants, on Monday.

Netanyahu called it a “moral outrage of historic proportions”, whilst the accused Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, termed it as being “despicable.” For the incumbent US President, Joe Biden, it was “outrageous.”

Even before Khan’s application, senior US Republicans penned a letter threatening to bar him and his family from the United States. They ended the letter ominously, saying “you have been warned.”

Despite this, Khan stood his ground, telling CNN: “We are not going to be swayed by the different types of threats, some of which are public and some of which may be not.” “This is not a witch hunt. This is not some kind of emotional reaction to noise. It’s a forensic process that is expected of us as international prosecutors.”

Born in Scotland, Khan was educated at the private ‘Silcoates School’ (in England’s north). He then went on to read law at ‘King’s College London’. His father was Pakistani, his mother British and he himself, is a member of the minority ‘Ahmadiyya community’. Khan sprinkles his speeches with “inshallah”.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2024