ICC top prosecutor removed over sexual misconduct allegations

0:03Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. And we're going to start at the United Nations in New York, because today, member states of the International Criminal Court, the main forum for trying individuals accused of the gravest war crimes, have been meeting to decide the future of the ICC's embattled chief prosecutor Karim Khan. He's been accused of sexual misconduct involving a junior member of staff who worked directly for him. Mr Khan, a British barrister, denies all wrongdoing. He's also come under intense political pressure in the past couple of years after he requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

0:45Well, just in the past few minutes, it's been confirmed that those members of the ICC have voted to dismiss him. Earlier, I spoke to our correspondent, Anna Holligan, who follows the court for us. We're going on at the moment on two agencies, Reuters AP, citing diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York where this vote has taken place. And according to those sources, it was a considerable majority in favour of his removal. This process, of course, goes beyond the fate of a single prosecutor. It has the potential to reshape the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal. And just to remind you, it was set up, the ICC, more than two decades ago to hold the world's most powerful leaders, military and political accused of committing the most heinous atrocities to account when their own countries were unable or unwilling to do so themselves.

1:38Kareem Khan was the court's third top prosecutor and he has, it seems now, made history the first to be dismissed in this way. And this whole misconduct investigation has put the integrity of the institution under scrutiny. It's intensified divisions inside the court and it's played out, as you alluded to there, alongside an unprecedented campaign to try to dismantle the ICC itself. Anna, why did it fall to member states to decide Mr Khan's fate? Under the rules of the courts, the Rome Statute, which is the treaty that underpins the creation of the ICC, it's up to the member states, the 125 member states, to have the final decision in these types of disciplinary proceedings.

2:21And they base their vote, their choices, It was a secret ballot on recommendation from the ICC's Assembly of States Party's oversight body. We heard a little bit more from some of the agencies that have been watching this unfold in New York early on in the session. Reportedly, a motion brought by Sierra Leone that would have made it harder to oust Karim Khan failed. And at that point, diplomats quickly move forward to vote on his removal. We are a few hours ahead of schedule now. We weren't expecting this result for a few hours. Countries voted, as I said, by a secret ballot. We know that the Netherlands had already stated in advance it planned to vote for his removal, so did France and Norway.

3:06They went public with their decisions ahead of this meeting. And also we've heard from Norway's deputy foreign minister who said, we believe it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that his conduct, Kareem Kahn's conduct, constituted sexual harassment and abuse of power. And Anna, just briefly, and I don't know if any of this has come through yet, has there been any reaction to his dismissal? And I'm thinking, of course, from the US and also possibly from Israel. Yes, there has. Reaction has been sharply divided. Probably the most politically potent has come from Israel. Israeli officials move quickly to welcome his dismissal.

3:44They cast it as confirmation that the Gaza arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yov Galant, the former defence minister, were illegitimate and that the prosecutor was unfit to lead the court. In Washington, of course, the decision sits against this broader narrative that they are lunatics and crazies involved at the ICC. U.S. officials have explicitly said they want to dismantle the ICC brick by brick. Inside the court, there are huge concerns that this whole thing has further undermined the integrity of the institution. At the same time, Karim Khan came into this position really keen to expand the court's mandate beyond a focus on Africa, which the court had been criticized for in the past.

4:31So he issued arrest warrants, sought arrest warrants in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Gaza, of course, and Russia. So he has gone beyond the remit of previous prosecutors. But now we have just witnessed, it seems, his downfall. Our correspondent Anna Holligan and just to confirm that final result 82 out of 125 member states of the ICC voted to dismiss him. Well let's hear from an international lawyer Leila Sadat who worked as a special advisor to the ICC prosecutor for just over 10 years until 2023. First of all her reaction to Mr Khan's dismissal. Well I think it's very good news actually for the court today because it shows that the Assembly of States parties took its responsibility seriously.

5:20They evaluated the evidence and they acted quite swiftly and quite decisively to take a decision to move the court forward. So you agree with the process. I mean, it's essentially a political process, isn't it? It is. I think the analogy we would use in the United States, it's like an impeachment proceeding. You do have evidence, so it's quasi-judicial, but it is essentially a political decision by a political body based upon Article 46 of the Rome Statute, which says that an individual holding high office can be removed for serious misconduct or if they are unable to fulfill their functions. And yet, I mean, these sorts of things crop up, unfortunately, in many organisations.

6:00Why couldn't it have been handled internally as a I mean, as an HR matter effectively? Well, I think what happened here really is I think that the prosecutor was his own worst enemy, if I can say so, in prolonging this, because I think had he decided a year ago to say, I deny the allegations, but for the good of the institution, I'm going to move forward. I think he could have had quite a dignified exit at that time. I think what happened is the process got prolonged. It turned into sort of a very litigious process with the prosecutor going to the media, with lawyers getting involved, with civil society being fractured.

6:42And for two years, this completely polarized the Assembly of States parties and civil society organizations. And we saw Twitter battles happening. And so I think today the Assembly of States parties had to make a very tough decision about what is needed to provide the unity that this court needs to survive going forward in the face of aggression from Washington and Moscow. How much damage has all this done, do you think, to the court's credibility? Well, you know, that's hard to say. The court's detractors will always find something negative to say about the ICC. I think the court is a judicial institution.

7:22And so the proof of the pudding really is, are they still winning cases? Are they carrying out trials? I think the Duterte arrest was highly successful. I think there's some other cases in the pipeline that are good news. We've had a couple of convictions that are very important recently. And so I think if we refocus our attention on the job that the staff have to do, right, not the chief prosecutor himself, but that the individuals carrying on the cases are doing, they're actually doing quite a good job. And so the detractors will always be the detractors. And the more the court is successful, the more detractors there will be, because the court, by definition, holds the powerful to account.

8:03Was Kareem Khan guilty of, as a chief prosecutor, of overreach, of grandstanding, as some people said? I think that's difficult to say. You know, I served as special advisor and it's not really my job to evaluate the prosecutor's strategy. I think there is a case to be made that going for public arrest warrants for heads of state of powerful countries, for example, that that is not likely to be a successful strategy. And in fact, having sealed arrest warrants or going after lower level accused is kind of a tried and true strategy that we saw work at the ICTY, at the ICTR. And so he really did.

8:46He did have a new strategy, if you like. And I think we're seeing that it wasn't particularly successful. Whether it was a good idea at the time is not really for me to say. That was the international law expert Leila Sadat, who worked as a special advisor to the ICC prosecutor until 2023.

9:15Firefighters in central Spain say they're losing the battle against a wildfire that's broken out not far from the capital Madrid. The authorities have declared a national emergency and tens of thousands of people have been told to leave their homes or simply stay indoors. In fact, it is at least three fires in all. Two are said to have merged in Madrid province. Another blaze is raging in neighbouring Ávila province. Francisco Martínez is the mayor of Burgo Ondo, a town in Ávila.

9:46I am 59 years old and I've never seen a fire this hot, never in my life. And it's dangerous and it's not controlled yet. Right now we are stuck inside because of the smoke. We have 100 people who have been evacuated. We have 50 of those in the town sports centre.

10:04Tens of thousands of people have also had to flee a wildfire in southwest France today. Europe overall has had an extremely hot and dry summer with three back-to-back heatwaves. And it is still only July. Well, let's hear the latest from Spain now. Simon Hunt is a journalist in Madrid, formerly of the newspaper El Pais. The authorities are saying that the fire that... It was actually three fires in Madrid that joined to create this massive blaze. And the regional authorities are saying now that it is at its peak and beyond any capacity to be extinguished. And very worryingly, it's now moving towards El Escorial, which is a beautiful place.

10:48and home to one of Spain's most important historic landmarks. That's where La Granilla is. It's a 16th century park and palace that was built by King Felipe II. So as you can imagine, there are a whole host of different emergency brigades on the ground. And at the moment, the military emergency unit, which is known in Spain as the UME, it's building defensive lines to try and stop that fire from reaching El Escorial. Climatic conditions aren't helping are they? I mean what's the weather like? I mean obviously hot but is it windy too? It is yeah I mean I'm in the centre of Madrid and that's about 100 kilometres from where this is happening but it's been very very hot and very windy here today and really it's like the perfect storm of just the worst conditions possible in terms of wildfires because we had lots of rain in the winter and the spring, which meant more vegetation.

11:48Then we've had various heat waves, as you mentioned, that dried out all of that vegetation. So it's just an absolute tinderbox. And then today what you've got is the combination of high temperatures and then high winds, which are not only fanning the flames, but also according to the authorities, they are sending sparks traveling kilometers at a time, which is causing fires which are actually quite far away from the already existing blazes. Journalist Simon Hunter speaking to me from Madrid. There's much more on this on our website. There's a live page up and running including the latest figures of evacuations.

12:25It's 25 ,000 in Spain, 20 ,000 in lockdown. But in France, it's 110 ,000 people who've been evacuated from southwest France as the wildfire continues to burn there. But as I say, go and take a look at our live page. bbc.com forward slash news. There is lots more information and lots of first-hand accounts of what is going on right now. You're listening to NewsHour.

13:00Still to come on the programme, the story of two friends in the city of Manchester in England, who after several years realised they're not just friends, they're actually brother and sister. I said, well, my brother was adopted. His name was Stuart. To which I replied, OK, my name was Stuart. When I was adopted, Stuart Proudlove. And I went, that was his name, Stuart Proudlove. She followed me back a few minutes later and said, I've spoke to my mum and were you born in Withenshaw, a hospital on the 24th of March 1966? I said, I was. And we both cried at this point because we knew what was coming.

13:31More on that extraordinary story coming up in half an hour. Our main headlines once again. Member states of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, have overwhelmingly voted to remove the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, over sexual misconduct allegations. And Israeli settlers have been attacking several Palestinian villages in the Occupy West Bank after a major confrontation left six people dead.

14:00This is James Menendez with News Out Live from the BBC. Ukraine's expertise in drone technology is the main reason it's been able to halt Russia's advances and some say turn the tide of the war. But it's also made that very industry a target. Today, a Russian ballistic missile struck a trade fair on the outskirts of the capital Kiev that was showcasing the latest military drones and their designers. At least 10 people have been killed and many, many more injured. The attacks also raised questions about why such sensitive technology was on open display and why the event was publicised in advance.

14:34The BBC's Paul Adams is in Kiev and has been telling me more. So this was an exhibition, we think primarily of drones, being held at a private shooting range in the outskirts of Kiev, near the town of Bucha, which listeners may recall from the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion, where some of the worst atrocities early on took place. There were a lot of people present, judging by the casualties, in excess of 100 wounded and at least 10 dead. We think that there were representatives of Ukraine's defense industry present. And I think there's a real sense of disbelief, almost, that something like this was being held out in the open and had been advertised ahead of time because it wasn't accidentally targeted.

15:20There were three ballistic missiles, one of which was intercepted and two of which landed in the vicinity of the exhibition. So it was clearly targeted. And people are wondering why on earth was this not done in circumstances of greater security? Yeah, I mean, I know it's a private event, but aren't the authorities in Ukraine normally very, very careful about security when it comes to anything to do with defence and the military? They are. And, you know, when you go and visit places with sensitive roles in the war, you tend to go to undisclosed locations. Some people have even gone in, you know, cars with blacked out windows so you don't really know where you're going.

16:01And it's very, you know, careful about what you film and what you can't film. But I think the thing to remember here is that Ukraine is in the midst of a kind of huge military transformation. It is becoming a kind of manufacturing superpower. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of companies developing all sorts of equipment, including, of course, drones, but not just drones. And they are all anxious to show off their wares. There are large numbers of foreign officials and foreign companies here doing business, doing deals. So there's a lot going on. And clearly, it is not always happening with adequate security.

16:37I mean, what has the government had to say about this? I mean, presumably it's furious that this has happened. President Zelensky has expressed his condolences. The Prosecutor General has said that they will be looking specifically into what security arrangements were made and who was responsible for organising this. So I think there is a sense that things went wrong here. It is not the first time. There have been at least two other major incidents in the past two or three years when similar exhibitions were hit directly by the Russians. And I think people feel that lessons should have been learned as a result of those episodes and clearly don't seem to have been.

17:15You talked about a huge military transformation in the country. I mean, it's also been a week of huge military and defense upheaval in the country, hasn't it? It certainly has. And that upheaval is is still kind of unfinished business. Yes, we have a new commander in chief heading the armed forces, and that has happened relatively smoothly. The old commander in chief, Alexander Siersky, was not popular, and so people were not unhappy to see him go. But we don't yet have a resolved situation with regard to the ousted defense minister, Mikhailo Fedorov. President Zelensky, having sacked him, has been trying very hard to put him into another position in government.

17:54But Mr. Fedorov is holding out for a return to the defense ministry itself, arguing that that's really the only place where he can continue with his reforms and his changes and where he can continue to drive innovation in the military. I don't think there's really much prospect of President Zelensky allowing him back in that position. I think that would be a fairly humiliating U-turn for the president. And so some of Mr. Fedorov's supporters are still on the streets protesting, not in quite such large numbers anymore. And there is a feeling that this is an episode which has dented President Zelensky's credibility.

18:30He's seen as being someone who is too anxious to sideline people he might regard as rivals in the future. But I think having spoken to a lot of people about this, the consensus is that while it is politically damaging, there is no immediate sign that it's going to have an impact on the battlefield because the sorts of long-range, middle-range strikes that now characterise Ukraine's effort with these attacks deep inside Russia, these are things that were being planned long before Mikhail Fedorov took over at the Ministry of Defence, and there's no reason to see them stopping now. Paul Adams, speaking to me from Kiev a little earlier.

19:08Welcome back to NewsHour. Catherine Lestrange, an 11-year-old girl from London, was diagnosed with Bade-Biedel syndrome, BBS when she was a baby. The condition is caused by mutations to one of 20 different genes and affects around one in 100 ,000 births in the UK, leaving patients blind by their late teens or early 20s. It can also cause serious kidney problems and learning difficulties. Well, Catherine has now become the second patient in the world to receive a groundbreaking new therapy, which involves injecting healthy copies of a gene directly into the retina using keyhole surgery. It's done just on one eye to mitigate the risk of anything going wrong.

19:46Well, Catherine had her surgery at the end of March and she's been doing very well since. Her father, Reverend Timothy Lestrange, spoke to the BBC. For any BBS parent, it's life in the hospital. Catherine was under 14 different medical teams from a baby. We were literally in hospital multiple times every week. That, of course, has calmed down. But the vision thing, we had adjusted to this. we had been told your daughter will be blind by her mid to late teens and there is no solution to this available, none at all. So we had made that adjustment mentally and were beginning to make the practical adjustments.

20:24And it was somewhat out of the blue last year when we were told by Dr Kirai, this gene therapy may be available. Your daughter may possibly be one of half a dozen children in the world who can experimentally have it. Dr Naruban Kumar is the eye surgeon who carried out the operation. As Reverend Lestrange touched upon, children often progressively lose vision. So the hope is really to stabilise and or improve their vision to relieve that anxiety of losing vision and hopefully maintain independence. It's very early on and time will tell. So this gene therapy is specifically for the BBS10 gene in Bardock-Biedel syndrome, but we learn lots from this gene therapy that we can apply to other gene therapies that are being produced and there are other retinal gene therapies that offers a lot of hope for children born with genetic conditions that cause them to gradually lose vision.

21:17Well Reverend Lestrange described the emotional moment that his daughter's eye patch came off. I have to say her younger brother was disappointed when it came off because he liked having a pirate as a sister but for the rest of us it was it was an amazing moment. We were with Mr Coomer and the nurses as they removed the patch. of course nothing ever goes to plan and in fact the patch had stuck to the eye with the sticky stuff there it took slightly longer to get off but kept us on the edge of our seats but yes a remarkable moment when it came off and we saw Catherine's eye blinking and she began to look around.

21:54The hope at this stage was that her vision would have returned to the same baseline as before the surgery and it has done that so that's one of quite a number of signs that are really positive and suggest this has all gone really well. We have to be patient because we won't know whether the procedure has been successful in the full extent of that term for months because there has to be a continual testing process. But everything is looking really, really hopeful. And Catherine, who incidentally is standing beside me with a grin on her face, is really, really positive. Timothy, father of Catherine Lestrange, who received that groundbreaking gene therapy to her eye.

22:38This is the BBC World Service. In London, you're listening to NewsHour and I'm James Menendez. It was a month ago today that devastating twin earthquakes in Venezuela left at least 5 ,000 people dead. Tens of thousands are thought to still be missing. The government of Acting President, Delcy Rodriguez, insists it's done everything in its power to help. But families remain angry and have raised questions about the immediate response to the tragedy and the quality of the public housing blocks which collapsed. Our correspondent Will Grant's travelled back to the worst affected region of La Guaida, meeting those who are still searching for the bodies of their loved ones one month on.

23:18Families in Venezuela are still looking for their missing loved ones and still finding them. Delicately and with dignity, the body of an 11-year-old girl is removed from a collapsed public housing block, her father finally able to grieve now that his desperate month-long search for her has come to an end. If anywhere could be considered ground zero of the twin earthquakes in Venezuela, it's here, the public housing complex in Caraballera. It is a strange and disturbing sight still. A month on a child's body has just been brought out and wrapped in plastic sheeting and taken to the morgue. Sitting on the rubble, a member of another search group, Maguina Nandez, weeps quietly.

24:07Retrieving the bodies is soul-destroying, he tells me through his face mask, for the rescue teams, the families, the friends, just soul-destroying.

24:18One man's soul is crushed more than most. The neighbours tell me of Victor Calderon, a fisherman who was at sea when the earthquake struck. He returned to dry land to find 26 members of his immediate family were gone, all in the same social housing block.

24:38The relatives include Victor's two sisters, their children and grandchildren, as well as his stepfather and nine cousins. It's almost too much to fathom, I say. I haven't cried for them yet, he answers stoically. I'll do that after I find the ones that are missing. Victor's daughter and granddaughter survived, but their much reduced family now lives in a tent on a golf course.

25:07In a slickly produced video, the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, gave 200 homes to affected families. A first step, but tens of thousands remain homeless. Critics say the government's social housing was shoddily built and collapsed easily, killing thousands. A point I put to the public works minister, Juan José Ramírez.