Foreign Office adviser urged Cameron to support Karim Khan days before he threatened prosecutor Submitted by Imran Mulla on Wed, 12/17/2025 - 12:05 The Foreign Office's top legal adviser said the foreign secretary meeting with Khan would show 'our strong support for the [ICC] and for Karim Khan as its prosecutor' Britain's then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron pauses as he delivers a speech at the National Cyber Security Centre in London on 9 May 2024 (AFP) Off The British Foreign Office’s top lawyer advised then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron in April 2024 to meet the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, saying it would show Britain’s "strong support for the Court and for Karim Khan as its prosecutor". This came just days before Cameron reportedly threatened to withdraw British funding for the ICC. As previously reported , Middle East Eye understands that on 23 April 2024, Cameron, while Conservative foreign secretary, phoned Karim Khan and said Britain would withdraw from and defund the ICC if it pursued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Declassified UK reported on Tuesday that heavily redacted emails obtained through a Freedom of Information request show the prosecutor's office was "keen to confirm" a meeting with Cameron the week before. A Foreign Office official said Cameron "should be able to meet in London on Monday 15 April". But afterwards, Declassified reported , officials in the Foreign Office discussed whether Cameron should attend the meeting. It was reportedly considered whether a lower-ranking official could meet Khan instead. But Sally Langrish, the Foreign Office's top legal adviser, said that it "is not unusual, nor improper, for the Prosecutor to meet with a Foreign Secretary to discuss general ICC issues…The Prosecutor has specifically requested this meeting with the [foreign secretary]". She said the meeting would be "advantageous and timely for us" for reasons including "maintaining our good relationship with the ICC, showing our strong support for the Court and for Karim Khan as its prosecutor". 'Like dropping a hydrogen bomb' But in June, MEE reported that on 15 April 2024 in London, the prosecutor met Justice Secretary Alex Chalk instead of Cameron. Khan told Chalk that he would apply for warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif. Exclusive: UK won't comment on prosecutor's claim Britain threatened to defund ICC Read More » Cameron then phoned Khan while the prosecutor was on an official visit to Venezuela on 23 April. MEE reported on the call based on information from a number of sources – including former staff in Khan’s office familiar with the conversation and who have seen the minutes of the meeting. Cameron told Khan that applying for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant would be "like dropping a hydrogen bomb". He claimed the warrants would have "profound implications" in Britain and within his own Conservative Party, according to MEE's sources. Cameron then said that if the ICC issued warrants for Israeli leaders, the UK would "defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute". Article 127 of the Rome Statute , the ICC’s founding charter, allows countries to withdraw by written notification to the secretary-general of the UN. Allegation by Khan himself Cameron, who currently sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords, the upper house of the UK parliament, did not respond to MEE's requests for comment. In a statement submitted by Khan to the court on Wednesday, which described details of an alleged campaign of threats faced by the prosecutor in the lead-up to his office requesting warrants against Israeli leaders, Khan said that on 23 April 2024 he received a phone call from "a senior UK government official" who warned that arrest warrants against Israeli leaders would be disproportionate and could lead to the UK withdrawing funding from the court. The Foreign Office has repeatedly declined to comment on successive reports on the issue. In an account of the episode in MEE journalist Peter Oborne's book, Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza , a source close to Cameron said that the call with Khan did take place and was "robust". Exclusive: How Karim Khan’s Israel war crimes probe was derailed by threats, leaks and sex claims Read More » But the source said that rather than making a threat, Cameron pointed out that strong voices in the Conservative Party would push for defunding the ICC and withdrawing from the Rome Statute. In June, former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf told MEE that the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee should investigate what happened during the phone call. Yusuf was the Scottish first minister while Cameron was the British foreign secretary. He said: "Lord Cameron has to be held to account. We are talking about a matter of the utmost seriousness here. We need to know whether a serving British foreign secretary at the time threatened to defund the International Criminal Court." UK Politics News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0