Karim Asad Ahmad KhanKC (born 30 March 1970) is a British lawyer specialising in international criminal law and international human rights law, who has served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court since 2021.
After his appointment by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, he served as United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and acted as Special Advisor and Head of the United Nations Investigative Team[2] to promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL in Iraq (UNITAD), which was established in accordance with Security Council resolution 2379 (2017) to support national efforts to hold ISIL (Daesh) accountable for acts that may amount to war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in Iraq.[3]
Educated at Silcoates School, Khan earned an LLB degree and AKC from King's College London.[5] He was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Lincoln's Inn in 1992. He later attended Wolfson College at Oxford University as a Doctoral candidate (D.Phil.) in law, although he did not complete the course and does not hold a Doctorate. Between 1993 and 1996 Khan was a Crown Prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales,[6] as well as a Senior Crown Prosecutor in 1995.[citation needed]
Khan represented a group of Anglophone human rights lawyers charged with terrorism and other offences before the Military Court in Yaoundé, Cameroon, as international counsel from February 2017 until September 2017. He led the team that advised Cham and Albanian communities in relation to their expulsion from Greece, and subsequent expropriation of property after the Second World War. He was lead counsel for a large victims case in Sierra Leone arising out of the ECOMOG intervention in 1999–2002, and he represented more than 100,000 victim claimants from the Kipsigi and Talai communities in Kenya seeking redress for alleged human rights violations committed during British colonial rule.[citation needed] Khan said that "Certain historical injustices need to be recognized ... It’s something that I feel very passionately about and it’s really worthwhile."[9]
Until June 2021, Khan was based in Baghdad, Iraq, and served as Special Adviser and Head of the Investigative Team for the United Nations Investigative Team for the Promotion of Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIL in Iraq (UNITAD), established pursuant to Security Council resolution 2379 (2017).[10] Khan led the team in achieving its mandate in the collection, storage, and preservation of evidence related to crimes committed by Da'esh/ISIL; the promotion throughout the world of accountability for the crimes committed by Da'esh/ISIL; to work with survivors in recognition of their interest in the achievement of accountability for crimes to which they have been subjected; to respect the sovereignty of the Government of Iraq in performing this investigation.[citation needed]
Khan met with government, religious, and community leadership across Iraq as part of his mandate at UNITAD.[11][12][13]
In February 2021, Khan was elected chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on a nine-year term during the second round of voting, receiving votes from 72 out of 123 member states (62 needed). Khan was the third chief prosecutor elected in the ICC's history, and the first one elected by secret ballot. Khan had been nominated by the United Kingdom.[4][14] He took office in June 2021, replacing Fatou Bensouda.
Khan, European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra and Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova in the Hague, Netherlands, 22 July 2022
In September 2021, Khan resumed the investigation into crimes committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State in Khorassan in Afghanistan which had been suspended in 2020 at the request of the government of Kabul. He dropped the investigation into the war crimes in Afghanistan committed by international forces, including the US, in Afghanistan. He also dropped the investigation into the U.S.'s use of black sites in Poland, Romania and Lithuania in the early 2000's where kidnapped prisoners were interrogated and tortured for their alleged membership of the Taliban or Al-Qaida. Khan said the investigations were dropped because of the limited financial means of the ICC.[15]
In April 2022, Khan said of the war in Ukraine: "We have reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are being committed."[16] Eleven months later, he successfully applied for two arrest warrants alleging Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova violated two Rome Statute rules against systematic deportation, transfer and hostage-taking.[17] In response, Russia issued a warrant for Khan's arrest.[18]
Khan served until 2018 as a member of the executive council and the victims committee of the International Criminal Court Bar Association, and he was the president of the ICCBA from June 2017 to June 2018. At the end of his tenure, Khan was appointed the first honorary president of the ICCBA.[23] In July 2018, he was recognised as a worldwide ambassador of the African Bar Association.[citation needed]
Khan’s father, a consultant dermatologist, was born in Mardan, Pakistan.[24] His mother, a state registered nurse, was born in the UK.[25] He was first married to Mirza Tahir Ahmad's daughter Yasmin Rehman Mona whom he divorced. He recently has remarried outside his community. Dato' Shyamala Alagendra, a Malaysian lawyer is his second wife. He has two sons. He has a sister and two brothers,[24] one of whom is the former Conservative British MP and convicted sex offender Imran Ahmad Khan.[26]
^"Khan, Karim Asad Ahmad, (born 30 March 1970), QC 2011; barrister; a Recorder, since 2018; Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, since 2021." WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 1 Dec. 2011
^"وفد من الأمم المتحدة يزور البطريركية" [A delegation from the United Nations visits the Patriarchate]. البطريركية الكلدانية (in Arabic). Retrieved 3 February 2019.
.jpg)
