The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who sought arrest warrants against Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza, was suspended from his duties late Monday after the court’s oversight body referred him for disciplinary proceedings over allegations of major misconduct involving women.

The court’s governing body said Khan has been suspended pending a vote by member states on his fate, following a probe into accusations of harassment made against him. A diplomatic source briefed on the decision said the executive bureau of the Assembly of States Parties ruled that Khan had committed serious misconduct following an 18-month investigation into accusations that he had non-consensual contact with a lawyer in his office.

The suspension marks the steepest fall yet for the British barrister, who has led the ICC since 2021 and became a target of fury across Israel and the Jewish world after pursuing Israel’s prime minister. In November 2024, the court, at Khan’s behest, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged Gaza war crimes. The same warrants named three Hamas leaders.

The misconduct case has shadowed Khan for more than a year. An Associated Press investigation found that two court employees reported the alleged misconduct in May 2024 to the court’s internal watchdog, a few weeks before Khan sought the warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant and the Hamas figures. A female aide accused him of trying for over a year to coerce her into an unwanted relationship – and worse, with the alleged incidents occurring at the ICC office, at his home, and during work trips.

Khan stepped aside temporarily in May 2025 while the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services completed its inquiry. He has steadfastly denied wrongdoing. His attorneys at the firm Carter-Ruck said last year that he remained the prosecutor, had not stepped down, and had no intention of doing so. Deputy prosecutors have run the office in his absence.

The path to removal remains uncertain. The case splintered the court earlier this year when a panel of three judges appointed by the Assembly concluded the UN findings did not establish misconduct or breach of duty under the relevant framework. The court’s 21-member bureau voted in April to disregard that opinion and press ahead anyway. If the bureau approves a finding of serious misconduct, the 125 members of the court must vote by an absolute majority, meaning 63 states, to remove Khan from office.

Israel has cast the entire affair as vindication. After the April vote, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the move proved what Israel had long argued, calling the proceedings against Netanyahu and Gallant fabricated and engineered by a deceitful prosecutor seeking to divert attention from an investigation into his own conduct. The ministry demanded the cases be dismissed.

Critics of the court have gone further. Eugene Kontorovich of George Mason University told Fox News Digital that Khan’s blaming of the Mossad for his troubles showed he was fundamentally compromised and that the investigation he launched would, in any normal legal system, be dismissed. ¹tea X

The suspension lands as the ICC faces what observers have called an existential crisis, already strained by US sanctions imposed over its arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

Khan has 30 days to respond to the findings before member states decide whether to strip him of office.

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