“The regulation isn’t there to look fairly. We can’t ignore it.” Final December, this assertion by the Prosecutor Normal of the Worldwide Felony Court docket (ICC), Karim Khan, on a go to to Palestine already set the tone…
This British jurist, recognized to be rigid, is on the focal point within the Center East, after having demanded, on Monday Might 20, arrest warrants in opposition to the Israeli Prime Minister, his Minister of Protection and three Hamas leaders. The explanations are critical: crimes equivalent to “intentionally ravenous civilians”, “intentional murder” and “extermination and/or homicide” in reference to the Israeli operation in Gaza… A call which brought on “disgust ” of the primary occasion, Benyamin Netanyahu, for this comparability by the Hague prosecutor between Israel”, a “democratic” nation and “the mass murderers” of the Islamist motion.
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30 years of expertise in worldwide prison regulation and human rights
Aged 54, Karim Khan is a graduate of King’s Faculty London. A lawyer since 1992, he has greater than 30 years {of professional} expertise within the area of worldwide prison regulation and the protection of human rights. Throughout his profession, this human rights specialist labored specifically on the crimes dedicated by the Islamic State in Iraq.
“His in depth expertise contains serving as a prosecutor, victims’ advocate and protection legal professional earlier than nationwide and worldwide prison tribunals, together with the Worldwide Felony Court docket, the Worldwide Felony Tribunal for Rwanda, the Worldwide Felony Tribunal for “former Yugoslavia, the Extraordinary Chambers within the Courts of Cambodia, the Particular Tribunal for Lebanon and the Particular Court docket for Sierra Leone”, specifies the ICC on its web site.
A acknowledged lawyer, Karim Khan “ensures to have a really in-depth information not solely of the factual parts of a case, but additionally of all the opposite features which, on this area, contain political, cultural and societal issues”, famous in 2021 the specialised authorized journal Authorized 500.
Directorate of the UN particular investigation into IS crimes in Iraq
Nicely versed in worldwide points, Karim Khan was elected in February 2021 and formally invested in June of the identical yr, successful 72 votes out of 122 in opposition to three different candidates within the second spherical of voting.
Human rights specialist, Karim Khan was earlier than his election under-secretary basic of the UN (United Nations group), answerable for main the particular investigation into the crimes of the jihadist group Islamic State dedicated in Iraq between 2018 and 2021. The world should “demystify” the ideology of IS, he declared to AFP in July 2019, believing that “Iraq and Humanity want their Nuremberg”, in reference to the trials which judged the previous leaders of the Nazi Occasion in Germany following the Second World Struggle.
Prosecution and protection earlier than completely different worldwide courts
The lawyer started his work in worldwide courts from 1997. He was first a authorized advisor within the Workplace of the Prosecutor of the United Nations Worldwide Felony Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR). ).
He has labored equally properly for the prosecution, the protection and the victims in quite a few worldwide trials. For instance, he intervened on the aspect of the civil events within the trial of the torturer of the Khmer Rouge regime “Duch” in Cambodia, or as an advisor to victims in circumstances in Albania, Kenya, Sierra Leone… He had additionally already officiated earlier than the ICC, this time on the protection aspect, for the son of the previous Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi, Seif al-Islam, for Jean-Pierre Bemba, former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, acquitted of prison fees of battle and crimes in opposition to humanity in 2018, or for insurgent leaders in Darfur.
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“The truth that he has defended each high-profile defendants and victims, that he has represented the prosecution, affords him a novel place to satisfy the challenges that await him,” analyzed for AFP in 2021 Carsten Stahn, professor of worldwide prison regulation on the Dutch College of Leiden, who interviewed Karim Khan in 2015 in entrance of college college students.
In a report evaluating the finalists on the time of the November 2020 prosecutor election, the Worldwide Felony Court docket fee discovered Karim Khan to be “a charismatic and eloquent communicator”, with expertise managing a big workforce. and demonstrating grasp of “the worldwide context through which the ICC operates, in addition to a transparent imaginative and prescient of the modifications wanted throughout the Workplace of the Prosecutor.”
In his newer feats of arms, Karim Khan notably issued an arrest warrant in opposition to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president in March 2023, “regarding unlawful deportation and switch of Ukrainian kids from occupied areas in Ukraine to the Russian Federation”. In February 2024, he additionally introduced that he wished to have the ability to prosecute environmental crimes, which are sometimes the trigger or consequence of battle crimes or crimes in opposition to humanity.
