British justice chief files war crime case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused of sexually assaulting female colleague

The British legal chief who launched a war crimes case against Israel’s prime minister has been accused of sexually assaulting a female colleague.

It is alleged that Karim Khan, 54, groped the woman in his office, climbed into her hotel bed and touched her ‘sexually’.

The allegations emerged after The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that Mr Khan, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), came under internal scrutiny there in May over claims he had harassed the woman.

The complaint was filed shortly before Mr. Khan requested the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Father-of-two Mr Khan continued to deny the harassment allegations as new claims emerged.

He is also said to have knocked on her hotel room door for 10 minutes while they were away on a business trip – and on another occasion Mr Khan is said to have locked his office door before putting his hand in the woman’s pocket stung.

Mr Khan’s wife, Shyamala Alagendra, has also been accused of intimidating a whistleblower who first reported the charges against her husband.

The senior male staff member claims in a document seen by the MoS that she ‘threatened’ to spread false rumors about him.

Human rights lawyer Ms Alagendra said last night that the allegations were ‘not true’.

The Associated Press reported that Mr. Khan gave the woman a raise during her promotion. Their time together is said to have increased after a dinner in London where he took her hand and complained about his marriage.

She became a regular presence on official trips. In one case, Mr Khan allegedly asked the woman to rest with him on a hotel bed while he complained of a headache, and then allegedly ‘sexually touched’ her without her consent.

It is later claimed that he came to her room at 3am and knocked on the door for ten minutes.

Mr Khan said there was ‘no truth’ to the allegations and that he had always supported victims of sexual harassment and abuse in his 30 years of working.

The ICC said the woman had not filed a formal complaint. But she reportedly does not trust that the court’s watchdog, the Internal Oversight Mechanism, will conduct a proper investigation.

She has reportedly asked for an investigation by the group of member states that oversees the ICC, the so-called Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute. The ICC said this request is under consideration.