Karim Asad Ahmad Khan
KC (born 30 March 1970) is a British lawyer and specialist in international criminal law and international human rights law who has served as
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is the officer of the International Criminal Court whose duties include the investigation and Prosecutor, prosecution of the crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, name ...
since 2021.
Following his appointment by
United Nations Secretary-General
The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary-ge ...
António Guterres
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres ( , ; born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. Since 2017, he has served as secretary-general of the United Nations, the ninth person to hold this title. A member of the Portuguese Socia ...
, he was, until 2021, an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and served as the Special Adviser and Head of the UN Investigative Team for the Promotion of Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIL in Iraq (UNITAD), which was established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2379 (2017) to support domestic efforts to hold the
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
accountable for acts that may amount to
war crimes,
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
and
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
in
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
.
On 12 February 2021, Khan was elected the chief prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
(ICC).
Education and early career
Educated at
Silcoates School
Silcoates School is a co-educational independent school in the village of Wrenthorpe near Wakefield, England.
The school was founded in 1820 as the Northern Congregational School at Silcoates House, for the board and education of the sons of Non ...
, Khan earned an LLB degree and
AKC from
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales by
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...
in 1992. He later attended
Wolfson College at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
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, as well as a Senior Crown Prosecutor in 1995.
Career in international law
From 1997, Khan worked as a Legal Officer at the Office of the Prosecutor at the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...
(ICTY) between 1997 and 1998. He later served as Legal Adviser at the Office of the Prosecutor at the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR; french: Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda; rw, Urukiko Mpanabyaha Mpuzamahanga Rwashyiriweho u Rwanda) was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nation ...
(ICTR) until 2000.
Between 2006 and 2007 Khan was lead defence counsel to former
President of Liberia
The president of the Republic of Liberia is the head of state and government of Liberia. The president serves as the leader of the executive branch and as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Liberia.
Prior to the independence of Liberia ...
Charles Taylor before the
Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Special Court for Sierra Leone, or the "Special Court" (SCSL), also called the Sierra Leone Tribunal, was a judicial body set up by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations to "prosecute persons who bear the greatest responsibil ...
(SCSL).
Khan spent several years engaged in leading cases at the
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
(ICC), International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
(ECCC), and the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), also referred to as the Lebanon Tribunal or the Hariri Tribunal, is a tribunal of international character applying Lebanese criminal law to carry out the investigation and prosecution of those responsib ...
(STL). In 2008, he was appointed Lead Counsel to former ''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' journalist
Florence Hartmann
Florence Hartmann (born 17 February 1963) is a French journalist and author. During the 1990s she was a correspondent in the Balkans for the French newspaper ''Le Monde''. In 1999 she published her first book, ''Milosevic, la diagonale du fou'' ...
, who had served as chief spokesperson to ICTY and ICTR prosecutor
Carla del Ponte
Carla Del Ponte (born February 9, 1947) is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former ...
, when she was charged with
contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...
. Between 2008 and 2010, he was engaged as Lead Counsel before the ICC representing Sudanese rebel leader
Bahr Idriss Abu Garda
Bahr Idriss Abu Garda (born 1 January 1963) is the leader of the United Resistance Front, a rebel group fighting against the Sudanese government in Darfur.Marlise Simons (18 May 2009). Darfur Rebel Faces International Court in Hague. ''The New ...
, the first ICC suspect to voluntarily surrender to the jurisdiction of the Court. In January 2011, he was instructed as Lead Counsel to represent
Francis Muthaura
Francis Kirimi Muthaura (born 20 October 1946 in Meru, Kenya) is a Kenyan former civil servant and close ally of former President Mwai Kibaki. He is the former Head of Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet.
From 14 March 1996 to 24 Apri ...
before the ICC in relation to the
post-election violence in 2007-2008. He later served as Lead Counsel for
Deputy President of Kenya
The deputy president of the Republic of Kenya ( Swahili: ''Naibu Rais wa Jamhuri ya Kenya'') is the principal assistant of the President of the Republic of Kenya.
History
Prior to the 2010 Constitution of Kenya, the deputy president was kno ...
William Ruto
William Kipchirchir Samoei Arap Ruto (born 21 December 1966) is a Kenyan politician who is serving as the fifth and current president of Kenya since 13 September 2022. Prior to becoming president, he served as the 11th deputy president of Ken ...
before the ICC, and Lead Counsel for Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo
Fatmir Limaj
Fatmir Limaj (born 4 February 1971), is a Kosovo-Albanian politician. He is the leader of ''Nisma për Kosovën''. Limaj served as Minister of Transport and Telecommunication in the government of the Republic of Kosova. He was known as "Çelik ...
before the
EULEX
The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, known as EULEX Kosovo or simply as EULEX,[About EULEX]
accessed 15 Ja ...
Court in Kosovo from 2014 until 2017. He also served as the Lead Counsel for
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi ( ar, سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي; born 25 June 1972) is a Libyan political figure. He is the second son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife Safia Farkash. He was a p ...
and
Baghdadi Mahmudi
Baghdadi Ali Mahmudi ( ar, البغدادي علي المحمودي) (born 1945) is a Libyan politician who was Secretary of the General People's Committee (prime minister) of Libya from 5 March 2006 to as late as 1 September 2011, when he acknowl ...
at the ICC.
Khan represented a group of Anglophone human rights lawyers charged with terrorism and other offences before the Military Court in
Yaoundé
Yaoundé (; , ) is the capital of Cameroon and, with a population of more than 2.8 million, the second-largest city in the country after the port city Douala. It lies in the Centre Region of the nation at an elevation of about 750 metres (2,50 ...
, Cameroon, as international counsel from February 2017 until September 2017. He led the team that advised
Cham
Cham or CHAM may refer to:
Ethnicities and languages
*Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia
**Cham language, the language of the Cham people
***Cham script
***Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script
*Cham Albanian ...
and Albanian communities in relation to their expulsion from Greece, and subsequent expropriation of property after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He was lead counsel for a large victims case in Sierra Leone arising out of the
ECOMOG
The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) was a West African multilateral armed force established by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ECOMOG was a formal arrangement for separate armies to work ...
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 the colonial period.
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). 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.
Khan met with government, religious, and community leadership across Iraq as part of his mandate at UNITAD.
In February 2021, Khan was elected
chief prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...
of the
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
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.
He took office in June 2021, replacing
Fatou Bensouda
Fatou Bom Bensouda (; ; born 31 January 1961) is a Gambian lawyer and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She served as Prosecutor from June 2012 to June 2021, after having ...
.
Ukraine 2022
In 2022, Khan stated about the war in Ukraine "We have reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are being committed"
Other activities
Between 1996 and 1997, Khan was a member of the
Law Commission of England and Wales. He is a life member of the Human Rights Institute,
International Bar Association
The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is a bar association of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. The IBA currently has a membership of more than 80,000 individual lawyers and 190 bar associat ...
(IBA), and a founding director of the
Peace and Justice Initiative, a Hague-based NGO focused on effective implementation of the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998Michael P. Scharf (August 1998)''Results of the R ...
at national levels.
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. In July 2018, he was recognised as a worldwide ambassador of the African Bar Association.
Khan was appointed
Queen's Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...
in 2011. He is a member of Temple Garden Chambers London.
Personal life
Khan is mixed race, Pakistani father and white British mother.
One of his brothers is the former independent (previously
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
) British MP
Imran Ahmad Khan
Imran Nasir Ahmad Khan (born 6 September 1973) is a British former politician and convicted sex offender who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wakefield from the 2019 general election until 2022. Elected as a Conservative, Ahmad Khan ha ...
.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Karim Ahmad
1970 births
Living people
Lawyers from Edinburgh
International Criminal Court prosecutors
British prosecutors
Members of Lincoln's Inn
21st-century King's Counsel
English King's Counsel
British lawyers of Pakistani descent
British Ahmadis
People educated at Silcoates School
Alumni of King's College London
Associates of King's College
20th-century British lawyers
21st-century British lawyers