The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor general, Karim Khan, leveraged the news of his much-publicized ‘arrest warrant’ for Russian President Vladimir Putin to rake in millions of dollars from NATO states, a new report by independent US-based investigative outlet The Grayzone has revealed.
“Through his focus on Ukraine, Khan has presided over a massive surge in Western financial support for his office, with much of the money earmarked for his investigation into Russian officials,” wrote Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, who pointed out that “the ICC’s issuance of Putin’s arrest warrant happened to coincide with a major donor’s conference for the court in London, England.”
That’s where, with numerous “justice ministers from the UK and UK allies on hand,” $5 million was raised during an event held by the British and Dutch governments in support of “the ICC’s mission to prosecute Russian officials,” the outlet reported.
And it’s not just critical and independent outlets taking notice.
At least one mainstream publication has linked the date with an important ICC fundraiser, implying Khan timed the publication of the warrant to coincide with a donor conference in London for the international court.
But according to the Grayzone, the ICC’s conspicuous fixation with Russia began well before last month’s warrant was issued.
A clear shift in the ICC’s priorities can be traced to the change in leadership that took place in 2021, when Khan replaced then-prosecutor general Fatou Bensouda, who had been slapped with sanctions and had her US visa revoked following her decision to investigate American war crimes in Afghanistan.
Following Bensouda’s departure, that investigation was dropped – along with a probe into potential Israeli war crimes committed against Palestinians.
“With its two most contentious investigations out of the way, a clearly pliant figure in the prosecutor’s office, and Russian troops inside Ukraine, the previously battered ICC suddenly experienced a deluge of Western financial support,” the report states.
“Much of the money flowed directly to Khan’s office, with special earmarks for efforts targeting Russian officials,” the outlet notes, pointing to comments by a Human Rights Watch official who told a French publication that “in the messaging around the various pledges that were made, states were not always that careful, and they often made the link between their contribution and Ukraine, thus creating this perception of politicization or selectivity in the court’s work.”
Khan has pledged to remain neutral in the ICC investigation, but has made little secret of his sympathies for the Kiev regime, having wrapped up his fourth visit to Ukraine in a single year last month.
While “the Ukrainian military was escalating its attacks on civilian targets throughout the independent Republicans [sic] of Donetsk and Lugansk, bombing markets and in one instance, massacring a bus load of commuters with a Tochka-U missile… [and] executing unarmed Russian prisoners of war and shooting them in the knees,” the report notes that Khan “remained studiously disinterested in the documented abuses his official hosts were carrying out right under his nose.”
Instead, “he had his eyes firmly fixed on Putin – and on the generous Western donations that propelled his mission,” the Grayzone report concluded.