Prosecutor Karim Khan will legally challenge his dismissal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), his lawyer has said, after ICC members voted to remove him following disputed allegations he sexually assaulted a female staff member.

"Mr Khan will challenge the lawfulness and fairness of the decision through all available legal mechanisms," lawyer Tayab Ali wrote on X on Friday, pointing out that Khan has denied the accusations against him.

Khan has been aggressively targeted by Israel, conducting intelligence operations against the ICC prosecutor for years, applying public and diplomatic pressure, pursuing legal challenges to remove him from the Palestine situation.

In May 2024, Khan’s office sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

The ICC later issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. The action drew condemnation from Israel and the US, which later imposed sanctions on Khan and other ICC officials.

Khan publicly stated that he, ICC judges, UN staff, and his family faced threats linked to cases concerning Israel.

In interviews, he has detailed warnings over pursuing Israeli officials, while media reports noted threats against his family linked to Israel.

Earlier on Friday, member states of the ICC voted to remove Khan over sexual misconduct allegations. Khan has denied sexual misconduct allegations against him from the outset.

Ali, a partner at Bindmans LLP and head of Khan’s legal team, said the Assembly of States Parties had disregarded serious due process concerns and removed Khan despite what he described as the absence of a lawful finding of misconduct.

137 findings have cleared Khan

The reports said 82 of the court’s 125 member states supported Khan’s dismissal during a secret vote at UN headquarters in New York. He is the first chief prosecutor removed from office in the ICC’s history.

The vote followed an investigation and a recommendation by the executive bureau of the ICC’s governing body that Khan be dismissed after it concluded he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a junior staff member.

Khan had been suspended from his duties in June while the disciplinary process continued. The court’s deputy prosecutors have overseen the prosecution office during his absence.

His removal will not invalidate existing ICC investigations or arrest warrants, which can only be withdrawn or altered by the court’s judges. Member states are expected to begin the process of selecting his successor.

According to Ali, the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services conducted a yearlong investigation and made 137 findings, none of which concluded that Khan had committed misconduct.

Ali said an independent panel of three senior international judges subsequently reviewed the report and underlying evidence. The panel unanimously determined on March 9 that the findings did not establish misconduct or a breach of duty under the applicable legal framework, he said.

Khan’s lawyers argued that the Assembly’s decision nevertheless followed a recommendation from the ICC governing body’s Bureau, which they described as political.

They said Khan and his legal representatives were barred from addressing the assembly before the vote and that the procedure was changed during the case, replacing a separate two-thirds vote on whether serious misconduct had occurred with a single motion requiring an absolute majority.

The decision was reached through a process in which Khan "was never given a fair opportunity to be heard," Ali said.

Khan will contest the lawfulness and fairness of his removal, the statement added.

Israel campaign against ICC

A May 2024 investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call exposed a decade-long Israeli intelligence campaign against ICC officials following Palestine’s 2015 Rome Statute accession.

The campaign targeted ICC officials and Palestinian rights groups to obstruct the court’s probe into crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israeli intelligence intercepted phone calls, messages, emails and documents belonging to ICC staff, including Prosecutor Khan and predecessor Fatou Bensouda.

Surveillance of Khan reportedly continued into 2024, giving Israel’s Netanyahu advance insight into potential arrest warrants.

Israel rejects the court’s jurisdiction over its nationals and denies wrongdoing regarding Israel's genocide in Gaza. Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute.

The ICC decision comes at a time when the global tribunal is under enormous pressure.

In a statement last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was launching a "sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to US sovereignty."

Rubio said he will pressure member states to withdraw from the institution, sanction organisations that work with the court and ban staff from traveling to the United States.

Countries that "enjoy the benefits of the US security umbrella" will be called upon to reject the court’s jurisdiction over US citizens.