It was an announcement that had the effect of a thunderclap. It’s Friday, March 17, and Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), issues arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. A policy decided and officially validated by Vladimir Putin and which constitutes a war crime in the eyes of the ICC prosecutor. This is the first time that the leader of a country that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council has been charged by international justice. Immediate consequence: the Russian president is likely to be arrested by one of the 123 member countries of the Rome Statute, which founded the ICC.
Born in Scotland, the son of a Pakistani dermatologist and a British nurse, Karim Khan has devoted his entire career to international justice. He first worked for the prosecutor of the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, then for that of Rwanda…. But he was also a lawyer – always before international courts. A pugnacious, hard-working and devilishly efficient lawyer, as one of his colleagues, Me Johann Soufi, told us from kyiv.
« I remember the trial in 2015 of Karma Khayat, a journalist then defended by Karim Khan before the International Tribunal for Lebanon “says the lawyer, member of the RCMP organization which supports the Ukrainian Public Prosecutor’s Office in its war crimes investigations. « She was accused of having revealed the identity of protected witnesses in the case once morest members of Hezbollah. It was a difficult file because there had been a television program, and therefore the proof was there, tangible…. And he obtained an acquittal thanks to his talents as a lawyer and strategist. The cross-examination he conducted of the prosecutor’s expert witness, honestly, was perhaps the best I’ve seen in my entire career. »
Sulphurous customers
These qualities as a lawyer, Karim Khan put them at the service of the victims of war crimes and crimes once morest humanity – but also sometimes of those who were accused of them. Among the most sulphurous of its customers: former President of Liberia Charles TaylorSaif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan dictator or William Ruto, the Kenyan vice-president accused of the post-election violence of 2007, and for which he obtained a dismissal in 2016. Since then, his detractors accuse him of having ” defended the indefensible “, while others salute, on the contrary, this atypical course.
« It is obviously very important to have the best possible lawyers in this field. “, points out the Swiss lawyer Alain Werner, who worked in Cambodia alongside Karim Khan.. “That’s the only way there can be credibility in these trials of international justice – and I have a lot of respect for defense lawyers who do their job ethically, and who defend these people who have to be defended… Because everyone must be defended! »
For Alain Werner, as for all those who supported Karim Khan’s candidacy when he was chosen to become ICC prosecutor in 2021, this experience acquired on both sides “of good and evil” can even be considered as a asset. ” Personally, I find it rather interesting to have people at the highest level who understand, because they have been on that side, the dangers that evidence can have and all the complexities that lawyers use and which can lead to acquittals. In my eyes, it is rather an advantage! »
A bold… and risky strategy
Having become a prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan now faces the crimes perpetrated in Ukraine. And he chose a bold strategy, with this arrest warrant once morest Vladimir Putin. However, some see it as a very political way of countering the idea of a Special Court for Ukraine, which would make it possible to judge the “crime of aggression” perpetrated by Russia. What, for example, the Ukrainian authorities demand.
« The crime of aggression is for me the most important aspect, because without war there will be no war crime, there will be no crime once morest humanity», notes the lawyer and writer Philippe Sands, who was Karim Khan’s professor at King’s College London. ” I think we need a special court which might also work in collaboration with the ICC. However, I believe that Karim Khan came out once morest this idea not out of principle, but rather to protect the role of the International Criminal Court, which for me is problematic. »
Another criticism formulated once morest the ICC prosecutor: the almost zero probability of obtaining the arrest of Vladimir Putin. At least, as long as the Russian president is in power and there is no regime change in his country. Naturally pragmatic, but also resolutely optimistic, Karim Khan stresses, however, that the arrest warrant issued once morest the Russian president has no expiry date. And the ICC prosecutor does not fail to recall that, in the past, several leaders who thought they were safe from international justice finally found themselves before the courts.
Like former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic or one of his former clients, Charles Taylor, finally convicted in 2012 of war crimes and crimes once morest humanity. ” If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 17-year career in international criminal justice, it’s never say “never”,agrees the lawyer Johann Sufi. “The time of justice is a long time and we do not know what will happen in five, ten or fifteen years… Today, there is a file, there is evidence, and maybe -maybe in the short term there is little chance that all this will succeed… But in the long term, who knows?
