Khan’s courting conf idence

KARIN Ahmad Khan, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, talks a good game about accountability, justice and how evil despots like Putin need to face the music.

Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to witness Mad Vlad in the dock in The Hague any time soon.

However, it has to be said that Khan, a Scottish native, appears to be a man with a mission we all hope will not be impossible. And he dismisses any idea that the ICC is just a sterile process.

Memorably, this week he said the ICC is not as strong as people

want, but neither is it as weak as people fear. He acknowledged that people need to be shown the Court is not just some theoretical construct without any teeth.

Khan is facing a truly daunting task, considering all the places we know to be responsible for the most wilful and egregious violations of human rights and unspeakable crimes against humanity aren’t even members of the Court and therefore don’t come under its jurisdiction.

Essentially, they’re untouchable. These states include Russia and China and the US as well. Interestingly, that old savage, the late Muammar

Gaddafi, was indicted by the ICC in 2011 for murdering civilians. Unfortunately he deprived his victims of justice by getting himself killed four months later.

But the only reason Gaddafi was indicted was because the UN Security Council referred the slaughter in Libya to the ICC, granting the court jurisdiction.

Tragically, that won’t happen in Putin’s case because of Russia’s

veto. Asked why anyone should be confident when a serving leader or president of any country has never been brought before the ICC, Khan replied: ‘There’s always a first time.’