A second woman has come forward to accuse International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan of sexual misconduct, The Guardian reported Thursday.
Khan, who was responsible for pursuing ICC arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, temporarily stepped aside from his role earlier this year after an allegation emerged of sexual misconduct in the past two years.
The new accuser, identified by the UK newspaper by the alias “Patricia,” worked for Khan as an unpaid intern in 2009, when she was in her 20s and he was a leading defense lawyer on the court.
She described his behavior as a “constant onslaught” of advances, telling The Guardian: “He shouldn’t have been doing it. He was my employer.”
Lawyers for Khan told the outlet: “It is wholly untrue that he has engaged in sexual misconduct of any kind.”
They also asserted he had provided evidence to investigators that “sits squarely at odds with the allegations that have been put to him” and “in a number of material respects show those allegations to be demonstrably untrue.”
According to “Patricia,” Khan once groped her breasts while the two of them were in the court’s offices, with a “prolonged” caress that was “completely unconsented.”
“It wasn’t like ‘oops, I brushed the back of my hand against you, I’m sorry,’” she told the Guardian. “He was too close.”
Undated photo of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands. (Oliver de la Haye/iStock)
Additionally, she said, Khan would invite her to work at his home, just the two of them, as they prepared a case. The prosecutor requested on at least six occasions that his now-accuser come to his apartment, she told The Guardian, and she did.
While working from the apartment, “it was just like a constant onslaught” of advances, she said, describing each time they worked from the apartment as “another round of [Khan] sitting next to me on the couch and touching me and kissing me and trying to convince me to sleep with him.”
“I remember coming up with all kinds of dumb excuses for why I did not want to sleep with him, just to try and not make him angry,” she said.
After her internship ended, Khan wrote “Patricia” a glowing recommendation, she said, and they remained in touch for several years — because, the woman explained, she felt a professional need to stay in his good graces.
In 2019, after receiving a message in which Khan thanked her for her “good company” and for “being a very good friend to me,” she responded that she did not like hearing from him, and wanted him to stop reaching out. He did.
“Patricia” came forward after reading about a previous allegation from an ICC staffer, who has accused Khan of abusing his authority and making “ceaseless” advances on her at his home, including trying to kiss her, between 2023 and 2024.
Once the United Nations investigators probing Khan complete their unprecedented inquiry, their findings will be reviewed by judicial experts. If they find that Khan has committed “serious misconduct,” a secret ballot could be held, in which the ICC’s 125 member-states would vote on his potential removal.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan (center) announces that he has requested arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, May 20, 2024. (Courtesy, International Criminal Court)
In April, it was reported that United Nations investigators examining the allegations of sexual misconduct were also looking into allegations that Khan retaliated against staff who reported the allegations or were critical of his handling of the matter.
Khan’s associates have tried to paint the initial allegations as a pro-Israel smear campaign, although The Guardian says there is no evidence of such a plot.
Pro-Israeli interests “may have exploited the story but they didn’t create the story,” an ICC source — one of five who rejected the Israeli-plot thesis — told the newspaper.
Additionally, the Guardian reported, the original ICC accuser has been “particularly distressed” by the assertion she is working on behalf of Israel, given that — according to people close to her — she was known within Khan’s office to be supportive of his investigation into Israeli leaders.
On November 24, 2024, the ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on suspicion of ordering war crimes during Israel’s campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza, following the October 7, 2023, invasion, massacres and hostage-takings in southern Israel.
Jerusalem denies the allegations, asserting that its war, whose aims are to return the hostages, defeat Hamas and prevent a future threat from Gaza, is fought in accordance with international law.
ICC warrants were also issued against three Hamas leaders, all of whom have since been killed by Israel.
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