Karim Khan KC, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and some of his staff face disciplinary investigations regarding applications to arrest Israeli leaders.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has
reported them to regulators for not complying with their professional obligations. UKLFI points out that they were obliged to provide the Court with information and evidence that exonerates the accused, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant of the charges, including extensive information and evidence that has come to light since the applications were filed.
UKLFI had provided extensive details of its concerns, backed by numerous cited documents, to the Prosecutor in a
letter and
annexes on 27 August 2024. In that letter, UKLFI expressed its dismay that the Prosecutor has asked the Court to ignore any information or evidence other than the material he originally filed in his applications for the arrest warrants,
“despite [UKLFI] having shown that every allegation against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant set out in [the Prosecutor’s] published summary of them is false, and despite the highly relevant evidence that has emerged since [the Prosecutor] filed the Applications.”
Having received no reply, UKLFI has now reported the Prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, and his assistant, Andrew Cayley KC, both English barristers, to the Bar Standards Board for England and Wales (BSB). UKLFI accuses Khan and Cayley of not complying with their duty not to mislead the Court.
This is a continuing duty – as the BSB’s guidance observes,
“knowingly misleading the court also includes inadvertently misleading the court if you later realise that you have misled the court, and you fail to correct the position”.