{"id":181438,"date":"2025-12-12T20:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T20:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/181438\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T20:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T20:45:11","slug":"ex-icc-prosecutor-says-uk-threatened-to-defund-court-over-netanyahu-arrest-warrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/181438\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-ICC prosecutor says UK threatened to defund court over Netanyahu arrest warrant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has alleged that an official from the previous UK government threatened to defund the ICC and leave the Rome Statute if the court pressed ahead with arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.<\/p>\n<p>Karim Khan, who has been placed on leave pending an investigation into sexual abuse allegations that he denies, made the allegation in a submission to the ICC defending his decision to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2025\/dec\/11\/britain-icc-funding-netanyahu-arrest-warrant?CMP=share_btn_url\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian reported <\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>He did not identify the British official who issued the threats, but said they came during an April 2024 phone call.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardian speculated that reports suggested the UK official was then-foreign secretary David Cameron, a former British prime minister.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, Khan said the British official argued during the call that issuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant would be disproportionate, and warned that London could respond by withdrawing funding from the court and exiting the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel&#8217;s Daily Edition<br \/>\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/terms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">terms<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In his submission, Khan also alleged pressure from Washington. He said a US official cautioned him in April 2024 that there would be what The Guardian called \u201cdisastrous consequences\u201d if the warrants were issued.<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/static-cdn.toi-media.com\/www\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AFP__20240311__34LE67U__v1__HighRes__BritainCommonwealthPoliticsCeremonyTributeRoyal.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3259548\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20240311__34LE67U__v1__HighRes__BritainCommonwealthPoliticsCeremonyTributeRoyal-640x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\tBritain\u2019s Foreign Secretary David Cameron reacts as he leaves Westminster Abbey in London, at the end of the annual Commonwealth Day service ceremony, on March 11, 2024. (Daniel Leal\/AFP)<\/p>\n<p>Despite calls to delay, Khan said he pushed back, telling the official there was no indication Israel was prepared to cooperate with the court or alter its conduct.<\/p>\n<p>Khan further claimed that during a subsequent call on May 1, 2024,\u00a0 US Senator Lindsey Graham warned him that pursuing arrest warrants would mean \u201cHamas may as well shoot Israeli hostages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Addressing the sexual misconduct allegations, Khan said he first became aware of them on May 2. Four days later, he said, an unidentified third party told him that a complaint about his behavior had been filed with the ICC\u2019s internal oversight mechanism without the alleged victim\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/static-cdn.toi-media.com\/www\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Untitled-2-5.jpeg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3428782\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Untitled-2-5-640x400.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\tIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin (left) Netanyahu at the Knesset, November 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90); An exterior view of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in The Hague, Netherlands, on April 30, 2024. (AP\/Peter Dejong); Then-defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a press conference at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, on November 5, 2024. (Miriam Alster\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<p>Khan said the woman later indicated she did not wish to pursue an investigation, and the matter was dropped, until an anonymous account on X revived the allegations in October.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/second-woman-alleges-sexual-misconduct-by-icc-prosecutor-karim-khan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">second woman<\/a> came forward\u00a0in August to make similar allegations.<\/p>\n<p>In his submission, Khan portrayed himself as having acted neutrally and professionally throughout the process, emphasizing that his decision to seek arrest warrants predated the allegations and was not influenced by personal considerations. He allegedly said it would be wrong to rely on \u201cconjecture from select media reports\u201d to argue that there were grounds for his disqualification, and stressed that his work on the case was carried out meticulously.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardian reported that Khan personally pushed for a detailed 22-page rebuttal to Israel\u2019s request to throw out the warrants, after reviewing an earlier draft he considered insufficiently strong. He also said he brought together a group of international law specialists to weigh whether the court had jurisdiction and whether proceedings should be initiated against Netanyahu, Gallant and three Hamas officials, who have since been killed by Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Israel last month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/israel-asks-icc-to-bar-prosecutor-under-investigation-from-cases-against-pm-gallant\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filed an appeal<\/a> to the ICC, asking it to bar Khan from any involvement in ongoing cases against Israeli officials.<\/p>\n<p>On November 24, 2024,\u00a0the ICC issued warrants\u00a0for Netanyahu and Gallant on suspicion of ordering war crimes during Israel\u2019s campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza, following the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Jerusalem denies the allegations, asserting that the war, with the declared aims of returning the hostages, defeating Hamas, and preventing a future threat from Gaza, has been fought in accordance with international law.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tWatch DocuNation Season 3: The Heart of Israel\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\twhen you join the ToI Community\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>In this season of DocuNation, you can stream four outstanding Israeli documentaries with English subtitles and then join a live online discussion with the filmmakers. 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Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has alleged that an official from the previous UK government&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-181438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}