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    • ICC’s Karim Khan rejects accusations of double standards against Israel
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    ICC’s Karim Khan rejects accusations of double standards against Israel

    Harry Posted on

    ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan He defended his decision to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli leadership in an interview with the German newspaper Der SpiegelIt was published last week.

    In his meeting with journalists NurembergNearly 80 years ago, in the case where the Nazis were tried for the crimes they committed during the Holocaust, Khan commented, “The International Criminal Court is the child of Nuremberg.”

    Continuing to touch upon the history of Germany and European Jews, Khan said, “We could not fulfill the promise of Never Again made in Nuremberg” and added: “People are crying and suffering all over the world, only in Palestine and Israel.”

    After referring to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Khan was asked whether Netanyahu’s accusations of antisemitism had any impact on Khan.

    NUREMBERG TRIALS: Bench of judges at the International Military Tribunal in Allied-occupied Germany c. 1945-1946. (source: Wikimedia Commons)

    “I’m not that thin-skinned,” Khan replied. “There is a lot of harassment, threats and games going on between political leaders, intelligence agencies and interest groups. But I know who I am.”

    “I first went to a synagogue in Leeds with my late father and mother when I was about six years old. Last year I gave the Elie Wiesel lecture in Ottawa. I don’t think the Raoul Wallenberg Center would invite an anti-Semite to give such an important lecture. “The Jewish religion is the great teaching of the Prophet Moses, and I have great respect for the Jewish people and the Jewish faith.”

    “We are seeing a growing tendency to exclude people by simply labeling them as anti-Semitic. Frankly, I think what is really worrying is what the victims expect from the law and their demands for the law to be applied equally everywhere in the world.”

    Khan explained that his predecessor left him the responsibility of investigating Palestinian territory, but that no source could be spared until the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7, when terrorists invaded Gaza, slaughtered more than 1,200 innocent Israelis and took more than 250 hostages. .

    “My predecessor launched an investigation three months before he left. “I came in with no team and no resources, but I still tried to move things forward,” Khan defended. “Then came the events of October 7, which were a terrible haemorrhage for the Jewish people. But the response of the Israeli government was a huge blow, not only to me, but also to the secretary-general of the United Nations, the human rights The high commissioner also set off alarm bells for the World Food Program.”

    Khan continued to criticize the lack of movement towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, without addressing the ongoing hostage crisis.

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    “All ICC member states, except Canada, have recognized the state of Palestine as a state party. “After considering the issue, the judges said we had the authority,” he said. “The question should be: Why shouldn’t we investigate? Is it okay for a certain geographic area to be illegal? Don’t Palestinians and Israelis deserve the same legal protection as the people of Ukraine, Sudan or the Rohingya?”

    Asked about the ICC’s double standards for failing to investigate acts of torture committed by Britain during the Iraq war, Khan said it was before his time. “Unfortunately, crimes occur in every jurisdiction in the world. Our job is to make sure there is no free pass. Palestine is a state party to the ICC. “What we do is a function of jurisdiction,” he insisted, declining to comment on cases before 2021.

    Despite Khan’s insistence that there is no free pass, Der Spiegel Reporters noted that one of Khan’s first actions was to suspend investigations into US activities in Afghanistan. Khan denied this, arguing that the investigation was not suspended but “not prioritised”.

    “Based on my sources, I have decided to give more importance to ongoing violations (such as the activities of the Taliban or the Islamic State in Khorasan) rather than historical violations,” he defended. “There is no situation where anyone has been given an immunity certificate.”

    Addressing criticism of Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the same time as the Hamas leadership, Der Spiegel He was asked whether it was “intelligent” to give the impression of “equating democratically elected politicians with terrorists”.

    Khan, who did not respond to criticism, said, “Every victim is equal. “I feel the same respect, concern and love as I do for a Jewish child, a Palestinian child or any person anywhere in the world, regardless of skin color, religion, age or sexual orientation.”

    Der Spiegel Journalists later brought up that Russian President Vladimir Putin was able to visit ICC member Mongolia without any right of application.

    “When we concluded that the evidence justified arrest warrants for Hamas members and Israeli officials, I was forced to move forward. I ask your readers to think about what the alternative could be,” Khan said.

    Asked what the alternative might be, Khan replied: “Imagine if I applied for arrest warrants just for Israeli citizens. People would say: How fanatic. How anti-Semitic. I would like to justify the heinous acts of October 7, such as the murder of babies and the taking of Holocaust survivors hostage.” If I had only taken action against Hamas members, imagine them saying: What a disreputable court in the pocket of the USA, Germany and all these powerful countries.

    “What about the 30,000 or 40,000 people dying in Gaza, the mothers giving birth to stillborn children, the famine and starvation? So those who accuse me of equating Israel with Hamas should ask themselves: What were the options? Or is there a complaint that the law is blind and that we have independent courts?

    As Israel pushed last year to end Hamas’ reign in the Gaza Strip and bring back the remaining 101 hostages, Hamas-run health ministries claimed more than 40,000 Palestinians had been killed. The figure given does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. As supporters of Israel have repeatedly noted, Israel is responsible for an extremely low number of civilian casualties compared to similar conflicts.

    When asked why the ICC should intervene as a last resort when Israel has a functioning judicial system, Khan replied: “Israel has very capable lawyers and judges. The question is: Is the law applied in the occupied territories? If you read what experts write and look at what is happening on the ground, we do not see any investigations. We do not see responsibility. I repeat, what is your complaint? “Should there be no justice because a country is an ally?”

    Khan continued to defend the timing of the arrest warrants, telling reporters: “Should I wait until everyone is dead? If your father, your mother, your grandfather were hostages, would you really want me to wait? If this were your child or your shattered sister, would you want me to wait? We should not indulge ourselves in thinking that people’s suffering is something to be interpreted in the future. The law must be felt in real time. “If you are a firefighter, you do not expect your house to burn down or the neighborhood to go up in flames.”

    Accusations against Karim Khan

    While Khan continues to investigate the accusations, the ICC also launched an investigation against him following reports of sexual abuse. ICC’s governing body to launch initiative External investigation into attorney general Karim Khan over alleged sexual harassmenttwo sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

    The alleged victim is a respected lawyer in his 30s who works directly for Khan. Guard. Documents seen by the British newspaper show Khan accused of unwanted touching and “abuse” from April 2023 to April 2024.

    In an incident listed in the document he saw GuardKhan allegedly “pressed his tongue” into the woman’s ear, and a source reported incidents of groping. The alleged victim also told colleagues that Khan tried to hold her hand during a trip to London.

    During another business trip, Khan allegedly asked the woman to sleep with him in his hotel bed and then ‘sexually touched her’, according to reporting documents seen by The Associated Press. He then allegedly knocked on the hotel room door for 10 minutes at 3 a.m.

    While Khan’s office has repeatedly been the target of threats and misinformation, the alleged victim was reportedly reluctant to make a formal complaint, instead alarm bells were rung by colleagues.

    Two employees reported the alleged harassment weeks before Khan announced he was seeking an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, the Associated Press reported.

    “He never wanted any of this,” said a person close to him. “But the complaint filed against his will and Khan’s subsequent denials and efforts to suppress the allegations left him in a very difficult situation.”



    Harry
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