Complainant goes public in sexual misconduct allegations against Karim Khan

An International Criminal Court employee has come out in public for the first time to speak about her allegations of sexual acts forced on her by the international body’s Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.

In a 46-minute interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour aired on Thursday, the woman, at her request identified only as Sarah, described the alleged sexual misconduct as an “escalation of attempts” within an unstable environment made so by the erratic moods of Khan.

“[There was] the pawing, the physical nature of it, but it didn’t start that way. Because it was kind of like encroachments on the boundaries slowly, not just physically but emotionally as well,” she said.

Speaking about recent denials of any wrongdoing made by Khan in the media, Sarah said, “There is no way for something to be consensual when you have such a power disparity. What I think many people don’t understand is that Mr. Khan was not just my boss, he was everyone’s boss. And it cannot be consensual.”

In one instance, she related that the two were on a mission in Bogotá, when Khan entered her hotel room on the pretext of reading her a text message relating to work. He then told her he would take a nap with her, and she “froze,” Sarah continued. Pretending to fall asleep on the bed, the prosecutor groped her, she told CNN.

Sarah is a lawyer originally from Malaysia, a wife and mother of one, according to CNN. She started her work for the ICC as an intern in 2017, and was selected to work as one of Khan’s assistants after he assumed the chief prosecutor position in February 2023.

The allegations against Khan first emerged in 2024.

Sarah alleges that he “sexually harassed her and repeatedly subjected her to nonconsensual sexual acts, including groping, attempted kissing and digital and genital penetration,” CNN said on the basis of a confidential, leaked copy of a U.N. investigative report that the news channel has obtained.

Sarah said during the interview that she is not permitted to speak about the details within the investigative report.

Khan’s lead counsel Sareta Ashraph told CNN, “Mr. Khan has denied and continues to deny them in their entirety—any form of sexual content, relationship, consensual or nonconsensual, with the complainant.”

The chief prosecutor was suspended by the ICC’s oversight body in June, followed by a suspension as a barrister in the U.K, which Khan has appealed against unsuccessfully.

Britain’s legal regulator said last week that Khan, 56, remains suspended from legal practice pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings.

At Khan’s behest, the ICC in November 2024 issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed in the Gaza war following the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Reacting to Khan’s ICC suspension, Netanyahu took to social media to accuse the court of being corrupt and said the war crimes allegations against Israel were fabricated to deflect attention from the accusations against Khan.

“Want to divert attention from sex crime accusations? Just make up war crime accusations against Israel! Classic. The ICC is corrupt to the core,” the premier wrote on X.

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