The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor is understood to be seeking further arrest warrants against Israel officials in addition to those already issued against the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
Karim Khan, who has led the prosecution team in Rome since 2021, is reportedly seeking the fresh round of warrants in relation to alleged war crime during the war in Gaza.
However, according to The Guardian, he has been ordered not to make public announcements of any future warrants or to make known his intention to seek them.
His heavily-publicised decision to issue warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, accusing the pair of war crimes, prompted outrage in Israel and sparked a wave of criticism concerning the impartiality and jurisdiction of the court.
The report suggests that the silencing order was handed down to Khan in order to prevent further public pressure being place on the ICC’s investigation into the allegations against Israel.
Khan has also recently sought warrants against the military regime in Myanmar and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan and has made known his intention to lodge an application related to allegations of crimes against humanity in Sudan.
ICC judges are said to have been made uncomfortable by his increasingly public investigations, which have reportedly placed them under pressure to acquiesce to his applications.
His standing was also reportedly damaged by allegations that he had retaliated against a colleague who had accused him of sexual misconduct, as well as those who criticised his handling of the complaint. Khan has denied all allegations against him.
The order related to the Israeli warrants, apparently handed down in secret last week, reportedly bans Khan and his team from publicly alluding to the issuing of warrants without prior permission. Sources also told The Guardian that a similar order had been imposed in at least one of Khan’s other cases.
An ICC spokesperson told the outlet they “cannot confirm or deny the existence or content of any judicial decision which has not been made public by the court,” but added that any warrant was “the outcome of an extensive, independent and impartial investigation in a situation under the court’s jurisdiction”.
The move comes after Israel secured a key victory at the ICC when its Appeals Chamber ordered justices to consider Israel’s objections to its investigation on the basis of jurisdiction.
At the time the Netanyahu-Gallant warrants were issued, Israel claimed that, as it is not an ICC member, the court can have no jurisdiction against Israeli nationals.
The ICC is only able to take action against nationals of non-member states in limited circumstances, such as a referral by the UN Security Council or the unilateral acceptance of its jurisdiction by the state in question.
Supporters of the warrants argue that Palestine can grant this unilateral jurisdiction with regard to the alleged crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. However, opponents respond that there is no recognised Palestinian state to grant this jurisdiction and that the provisions of the Oslo Accords preclude it from appealing to the ICC as a non-state actor.
The case has now been frozen while the objection is considered. The two warrants will remain active while it is decided, but the motion could see them thrown out altogether.
