New Yorker publishes fresh details of how sex claims against Karim Khan derailed ICC's Israel probe
میدل-ایست-آی - 1404-07-15 22:15:59
New Yorker publishes fresh details of how sex claims against Karim Khan derailed ICC's Israel probe
Fresh details of the investigation into a complaint of alleged sexual misconduct against the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, have emerged after the New Yorker magazine published a new story about the ongoing case.
The story reiterated many of the details previously reported by Middle East Eye.
But the New Yorker's article, published online on Sunday and entitled 'The Hague on Trial", reports new information on the role of Thomas Lynch, Khan's special assistant, whom he tasked to liaise with Israel on the ICC's Palestine investigation.
The New Yorker piece reports that "some suspect that Lynch himself, or someone close to Lynch, played a role in" leaks to the media of Lynch's own four-page statement to ICC investigators about the sexual misconduct allegations against Khan in October 2024.
According to the New Yorker, an "anonymous e-mail account" leaked secondhand reports about Khan to journalists, falsely claiming in the email that Khan, "as a preemptive measure", had publicly "accused the Israeli 'Mossad' of threatening and blackmailing him".
The New Yorker also reports that the email "then spoke up for Mossad" and said Khan did so "as a cover up story".
The email also listed names and phone numbers of Lynch, Khan's accuser and several others at the ICC, and contained the Hebrew word for "telephones", alongside some numbers.
The New Yorker further reports that records of communications on the day that an X account posting about the allegations appeared show Lynch had "met with the accuser shortly before her hour-long call with Khan" - and that the X account appeared for the first time 90 minutes after the call.
It said that "communications records also show Lynch expressing surprise when the leaks first emerged, and he has told investigators that he wasn't responsible".
"Were the e-mail and the X account part of an Israeli influence operation, or were the references to Mossad and the Hebrew letters heavy-handed misdirection?"
The New Yorker piece also reports for the first time that the woman accusing Khan of sexual misconduct, an ICC staff member, "had argued internally that he should move more slowly in making charges against Israeli leaders, and not rush to publicise high-level warrants".
This contradicts previous reporting in the Wall Street Journal, which repeatedly reported that the complainant - whose allegations were made in late April 2024 - supported the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
In July, the woman told MEE there was no connection between her complaint and Khan's investigation into Israel, and said she supported all investigations under the Court's jurisdiction.
Khan stepped away on indefinite leave in May pending the outcome of an independent UN investigation into the complaint against him.
Threats and pressure targeting the prosecutor have unfolded over the last two years as Khan sought to build and pursue a case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over their conduct of the war on Gaza and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion and violence against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank.
The New Yorker said the scandal surrounding Khan had "already impeded the effort to hold Israel accountable for the death toll in Gaza". Its story comes after an MEE investigation earlier in August revealed:
- Threats and warnings directed against Khan by leading politicians, including then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and US Senator Lindsey Graham
- Close colleagues and family friends briefing against Khan
- Fears for Khan's safety prompted by the presence of a Mossad team in The Hague, where the ICC is based
- Media leaks about sexual assault allegations against Khan
The Trump administration sanctioned Khan in February. Khan went on leave in mid-May, shortly after an attempt to suspend him failed and amid the ongoing UN investigation into allegations made by the female ICC staff member.
The New Yorker piece highlights how leaks surrounding sexual misconduct allegations against Khan have helped to derail his pursuit of Israeli officials - and how those allegations have been presented as motivating his case against Netanyahu and Gallant.
The Wall Street Journal claimed in an editorial on 16 May that Khan had used the arrest warrants to "distract from his own behaviour". It described the ICC's case against Netanyahu as "tainted".
But, as previously reported by MEE, the prosecutor's decision to apply for warrants was made six weeks before allegations were made against him in late April 2024.
The New Yorker said the WSJ's editorial page "consistently supports Netanyahu".
The New Yorker reports that in "correspondence that Khan made available to the [UN] investigators, his accuser appears to be very warm, prone to disclosure about her personal life and struggles, highly solicitous of Khan and his wife, and perhaps overeager".
"Even in the period immediately before and after she cried to colleagues [in spring 2024], she sent Khan messages saying that she was glad to be on a mission with him and suggesting art work that he and his wife might buy for their home."
Phone call recording
The New Yorker reports that in a text to Khan in May 2024, the woman "sounded worried that political machinations might be driving the investigation, telling him that she refused to be 'a pawn in some game I don't want to play'".
It reports on a recording of a phone conversation between the woman and Khan on 17 October 2024, in which she "never referred to any sexual advances or other misconduct, but she lamented several times that she'd heard colleagues gossiping that she was either 'obsessed' with him or, worse, an Israeli spy".
The New Yorker said: "Occasionally, [Khan] sounded confident that he was innocent of any misconduct, reminding her repeatedly that it was her choice if she wanted to initiate a more comprehensive investigation, including of him. 'The truth will come out,' he assured her."
"Yet, at other moments, he sounded anxious that she might pursue a complaint against him. He told her that speculation about this was 'keeping things alive', and he urged her to formally clarify that she had no intention of accusing him of inappropriate behavior. 'Then it's well and truly over,' he said, and the ICC could end the 'feeding frenzy' by telling journalists, 'Fuck off now—leave her alone'."
The New Yorker said the woman falsely told Khan she was not recording the call.
The New Yorker also cited text messages between the woman and a friend in early 2024, which it said were included in her submission to UN investigators, in which it claimed she "explicitly described sexual advances by Khan".
"He wants to go on holiday or link a mission and stay on for a few days. I'm beautiful, the smell of my neck," she wrote in a text that April, saying that she'd made an excuse to get away from him.
The New Yorker added: "A person close to Khan said that UN investigators haven't sought his response to any such evidence."
In late July, MEE sent an extensive list of questions to the complainant covering matters including her complaint against Khan, her friendship with Khan and his wife, and comments she made in messages and the phone call to Khan.
She said: "As a staff member of the International Criminal Court, I am bound by obligations of confidentiality and professional integrity, and I therefore cannot engage with the questions posed or correct the inaccuracies contained within it."
However, she added: "I categorically reject the insinuations and selective characterisations presented, which are highly inaccurate, defamatory and clearly intended to discredit me personally."
She said she had fully cooperated with the UN investigation and complied with "all legal and institutional obligations".
She denied any link between her complaint against Khan and the prosecutor's investigation into Israel, and said she was not affiliated with, or acting on behalf of, any state or external actor.
She said: "I continue to support all investigations under the Court's jurisdiction, as I always have. My complaint has nothing whatsoever to do with the Court's investigation into Palestine. Two things can be true at the same time, and one has absolutely no connection to the other."
She said the events of the past year had been "deeply painful and personally destructive" and had significantly affected her health and well-being.
Cameron: Warrants a 'hydrogen bomb'
The New Yorker piece also mentions that official notes Khan submitted to the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) - currently investigating misconduct allegations against the prosecutor - say former British Foreign Secretary David Cameron told Khan in April 2024 that seeking arrest warrants for Israeli officials would be a "hydrogen bomb".
MEE reported in June that a number of sources - including former staff in Khan's office familiar with the conversation and who had seen the minutes of the meeting - said Cameron also threatened that the UK would withdraw from the ICC if the court proceeded with the warrants.
At the time, Cameron did not respond to requests for comment, while the British Foreign Office declined to comment.
The New Yorker reports on the role of Lynch, Khan's special assistant, who "was known as a skeptic of issuing high-level charges against the Israelis".
MEE previously reported that Lynch played a key role in making the misconduct allegations against Khan official. Privately, however, Lynch had expressed his own doubts about the allegations to Khan's wife and said that the timing was suspicious.
In response to questions from MEE, Lynch described allegations featured in MEE's story in August as "false and misleading".
'They will destroy you'
The New Yorker also reports that the woman's allegations were more serious by the time an external UN investigation began in late 2024 than they had been during two earlier internal ICC investigations, which were both closed after the woman did not cooperate with them.
The story describes Khan's account of a meeting with British-Israeli ICC lawyer Nicholas Kaufman, who "presented himself as authorised to make a proposal from Netanyahu and Gallant".
According to Khan's notes, "Kaufman said that, if Khan did not somehow withdraw the warrants, 'they' - presumably, Israel and its American allies - 'will destroy you and they will destroy the court'".
Kaufman denied to the New Yorker, as he had previously done to MEE, "that he'd ever made any threats or claimed to speak for Netanyahu or Gallant, and said that any reference to damage to the ICC was about US sanctions".
He told the New Yorker: "I went to Khan as a friend, and he proved to me that his friends are expendable to him if he needs to save his own hide."
In recent months the Trump administration has sanctioned ICC judges and Khan's deputy prosecutors, who took over after he went on leave in May.
Fears are growing that the US could soon sanction the court itself, which could plunge it into an existential crisis.
