\n When Karim Khan was sworn in as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he said the court should be judged by its acts -- \"the proof of the pudding should be in the eating.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n And by seeking arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Hamas figures, Khan has shown he is not afraid to take on the world's most controversial cases.\n<\/p>\n
\n The application followed an arrest warrant issued last year for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which promptly slapped arrest warrants on Khan himself.\n<\/p>\n
\n But then the 54-year-old Briton has faced down controversy throughout a career that has included stints defending Liberia's former president Charles Taylor against allegations of war crimes in Sierra Leone.\n<\/p>\n
\n Other high-profile clients have included Kenya's President William Ruto in a crimes-against-humanity case at the ICC that was eventually dropped, and the son of late Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Seif al-Islam.\n<\/p>\n
\n Asked about \"crossing the floor\" -- working as both prosecutor and defence -- Khan told specialist publication OpinioJuris that it helps lawyers stay \"grounded.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n It also prevents \"corrosive traits such as thinking that defence counsel is the devil incarnate or that as a prosecutor you are doing 'God's work',\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Criticised initially for not acting fast enough to prevent atrocities in Gaza, Khan touched off a firestorm when applying for arrest warrants on Monday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Netanyahu called it a \"moral outrage of historic proportions\", fellow accused Defence Minister Yoav Gallant lashed it as \"despicable.\" For US President Joe Biden, it was \"outrageous.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Even before Khan's application, senior US Republicans penned a letter threatening to bar him and his family from the United States, ending ominously \"you have been warned.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n But Khan has held firm, telling CNN: \"We are not going to be swayed by the different types of threats, some of which are public and some of which may be not.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This is not a witch hunt. This is not some kind of emotional reaction to noise... It's a forensic process that is expected of us as international prosecutors.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Guilty as charged' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Born in Scotland, Khan was educated at the private Silcoates School in northern England, before studying undergraduate law at King's College, London.\n<\/p>\n
\n His father was Pakistani, his mother British and he is a member of the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, sometimes sprinkling his speeches with \"inshallah\" (God Willing).\n<\/p>\n
\n Called to the bar in 1992, he went on to cut his teeth in international law at the former Yugoslav and Rwandan war crimes courts from 1997 to 2000.\n<\/p>\n
\n He later represented survivors and relatives of victims of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia at its UN-backed court in the late 2000s.\n<\/p>\n
\n His other roles have included a stint at The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to bring to justice the killers of Lebanese ex-PM Rafic Hariri in 2005.\n<\/p>\n
\n More recently, he headed the UN special probe into Islamic State group crimes and called for trials like those at Nuremberg of Nazi leaders.\n<\/p>\n
\n Initially absent from a list of candidates for the top ICC prosecutor job, Khan was added reportedly at the insistence of the Kenyan government.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ICC selection panel described him as a \"charismatic and articulate communicator who is well aware of his achievements.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I don't think it was a compliment,\" Khan quipped to OpinioJuris.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I did apply because I thought I could do the role. If the Search Committee thought this was arrogance, then I'm guilty as charged,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n In his speeches, he is forthright with a strong command of oratory, sprinkled with dashes of British humour.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"From what I've observed, Karim Khan seems like a no-nonsense lawyer, which I quite respect,\" Melanie O'Brien, visiting professor in international law at the University of Minnesota, told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n An ICC prosecutor \"has to have a certain fortitude because you know that you are going to be up against people who don't agree with you and don't agree with the court generally,\" she added.\n<\/p>\n
\n Driving Khan appears to be a thirst to deliver justice for all, regardless of outside influence.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It's very dangerous to succumb to popular demand -- it's very important to follow the evidence,\" he told AFP in a 2022 interview.\n<\/p>\n
\n And the stakes, he believes, could hardly be higher.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If we don't apply the law equally, we're going to disintegrate as a species,\" he told CNN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Karim Khan was sworn in as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he said the court should be judged by its acts -- \"the proof of the pudding should be in the eating.\" And by seeking arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Hamas figures, Khan has shown he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-132193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n