Le Monde publishes new details of campaign against Karim Khan and ICC
An intensifying campaign has targeted the ICC chief prosecutor over his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan talking to another lawyer in The Hague on 14 March 2025 (Peter Dejong/AFP)
Published date: 4 August 2025
French newspaper Le Monde
has reported extensive details of an intensifying intimidation campaign
targeting the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Karim
Khan.
The campaign has taken place against the backdrop of Khan's efforts
to build and pursue a case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and other Israeli
officials over alleged war crimes.
Khan went on leave in mid-May after an attempt to suspend him,
prompted by a senior member of his own office, failed. This was amid an
ongoing United Nations investigation into sexual misconduct allegations
against the prosecutor.
In a story
published on Friday, the French newspaper quoted British barrister
Andrew Cayley, who oversaw the ICC's Palestine investigation, saying
Dutch intelligence informed him that he was at risk in The Hague.
Cayley said that in December 2024 he was directly threatened: "I was
told I was an enemy of Israel and that I should watch my back."
Cayley told the Observer in June that he left his role earlier this year fearing US sanctions, and that the pressure severely affected his health.
Le Monde reported on the role allegedly played in the proceedings by
Thomas Lynch, a senior legal adviser at the ICC and longstanding friend
and colleague of Khan and his wife.
Khan had tasked Lynch, who worked in his office as his special
assistant, with liaising with Israel on the Palestine investigation.
According to Le Monde, in May 2024 Lynch suggested that Khan organise
a dinner in Jerusalem with prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
The plan was that Netanyahu himself would join them in the middle of the meal.
The newspaper reported that Khan described this as "a remake of
Oliver Twist... Netanyahu and I eating roast turkey in front of the
hungry Gazans! It's a dangerous idea!"
Le Monde reported that an anonymous source in the ICC said Lynch
tried to sabotage Khan's pursuit of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and
Gallant.
The source told Le Monde that Lynch "openly said that for him
Palestine is not a state, that Israel is not a party to the Court, and
that the office should not investigate it".
The source further alleged that Lynch referred sexual harassment
allegations against Khan to investigators "to get rid of the prosecutor"
and "hijack the process" of applying for arrest warrants.
Le Monde reported that a note written by Lynch was the source of
press reports about the misconduct allegations against Khan in October
2024.
Lynch told Le Monde that the reports in its story were "false and misleading".
Cameron's threatening phone call
Le Monde also reported that on 23 April 2024, then-British Foreign
Secretary David Cameron threatened Khan in a phone call that Britain
would withdraw from the ICC if the court issued arrest warrants for
Israeli leaders.
In June, MEE first revealed details of
the call based on information from a number of sources - including
former staff in Khan's office familiar with the conversation and who
have seen the minutes of the meeting.
Cameron told Khan that applying for warrants for Netanyahu and
Gallant would be like dropping "a hydrogen bomb", Le Monde reported.
He threatened that the UK would "withdraw from the ICC's founding
treaty", the Rome Statute, "if Karim Khan followed through with his
intentions".
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In June, Cameron did not respond to MEE’s requests for comment and the British foreign office declined to comment.
Le Monde also reported on a meeting on 1 May this year between Khan
and British-Israeli ICC lawyer Nicholas Kaufman, which was first revealed by MEE last month.
Le Monde cited a "report of the meeting" which said Kaufman told Khan
that if ICC arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were not dropped, he
and the ICC would be destroyed.
Kaufman told Khan he had spoken to Netanyahu’s legal adviser Roy Schondorf and offered Khan a way out, Le Monde reported.
Khan, Kaufman suggested, should reclassify the arrest warrants as
confidential. This would allow Israel to challenge them in private.
In response to questions from MEE in July, Kaufman denied threatening
Khan. He denied having been authorised to make any proposals on behalf
of the Israeli government and said he had shared his personal views with
Khan on the Palestine situation.
Kaufman told Le Monde he "did not dispute the meeting", but said he was looking to help Khan "get out of his mistakes".
Intensifying intimidation campaign
The meeting came less than two weeks before allegations of sexual
assault against Khan, which he has strenuously denied, were first
published, and as he was reportedly preparing to seek arrest warrants
for more members of the Israeli government.
There is no suggestion of any connection between the Kaufman-Khan
meeting and the publication of the allegations. Khan went on indefinite
leave shortly afterwards.
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Le Monde quoted Cuno Tarfusser, a former ICC judge, who said Khan going on leave was a "coup d'état".
Tarfusser described the ongoing UN investigation into misconduct
allegations against Khan as an "irregular procedure", "tailor-made" and
conducted with a "disregard for confidentiality".
On Friday MEE published extraordinary
details of the intimidation campaign targeting Khan, which has involved
threats and warnings directed at 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.
MEE reported details of Lynch's role in the process by which Khan was forced on leave.
Lynch triggered the initial investigation by the ICC's Internal
Oversight Mechanism (IOM) into harassment allegations against Khan in
May 2024, after Khan told him to follow the established procedures.
On 4 May, just after the investigation was launched, Khan's wife
Shyamala Alagendra met up with Lynch. According to the material reviewed
by MEE, Lynch privately expressed his own doubts about the allegations
and said their timing was “suspicious”.
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But following the publication in May this year of the sexual assault
allegations against Khan, Lynch approached the ICC's presidency in a bid
to have the prosecutor suspended.
Lynch urged the presidency to start a process by which ICC member states could vote to formally suspend Khan.
When this attempt failed, Lynch approached the two deputies and urged them to make the same case to the presidency.
This followed leaked reports that Khan was preparing to request arrest warrants for more Israeli officials.
It was amid this internal turmoil that the decision was made that
Khan should step away on leave while the investigation continued.
Lynch told MEE: "As you are aware, there is an ongoing confidential
investigation into this matter that limits my right to reply."
He said questions put to him by MEE were "false and misleading".
Sanctions and pressure
Since being subjected to sanctions by the US in February, Khan has
had his American visa revoked, and his wife and children have been
banned from travelling to the country. His bank accounts have also been
frozen and his credit cards cancelled in the UK.
At present, the progress and future direction of the ICC’s
investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes rests with Khan's
deputies, pending the outcome of the ongoing OIOS investigation.
On 27 May, the Wall Street Journal reported that
just before he took leave, the prosecutor had been preparing to seek
new warrants for Smotrich and Ben Gvir, Netanyahu’s key far-right allies
in his coalition government, over their roles in expanding illegal
settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Whether or not those applications have been filed is no longer public
knowledge after the court recently ordered that any further warrants
cannot be publicised.
But the pressure on both the prosecutor’s office and the court itself
has continued to build, with US sanctions on four ICC judges on 8 June.
In a further threat to the court last month, US State Department legal adviser Reed Rubinstein warned
that "all options remain on the table" unless all arrest warrants and
the investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes are dropped.