New war crimes prosecutor takes aim at ‘hate preachers’

Karim Khan has set his sights on false prophets whose words cause bloodshed

The International Criminal Court's incoming chief prosecutor Karim Khan is calling for tougher action against faith leaders who promote hate. AP Photo

The next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, laid out plans on Friday for tougher action against faith leaders who spew hate and promote violence between religious groups.

Mr Khan, who will replace the current court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda when she steps down in June, called for new ways to tackle "hate preachers" in the Middle East, who he said should be barred from politics.

He currently heads the UN’s investigative team helping Iraq’s government to prosecute ex-members of ISIS who followed former spiritual leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s call to kill and enslave Yazidis and other minorities.

“One cannot preach hate and then be involved in peace,” Mr Khan told the UN Security Council on Friday.

“It is obviously a requirement upon decision-makers, UN member states and the council to involve in peace processes where possible those that have either renounced violence and hate or have never been involved in it in the first place.”

As well as pushing hate preachers out of the public sphere, Mr Khan called for better systems to monitor rising levels of religious bigotry and discrimination and for stiffer penalties against those who build careers peddling sectarianism.

“We need to have a greater understanding than perhaps we currently do and to devise methodologies to ensure that freedom of religion, freedom of worship is not considered merely a human right but an essential pillar of national security,” said Mr Khan.

The 50-year-old British lawyer was elected last month as the next chief prosecutor of the court, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, and is set to start his nine-year term on June 16.

Based in The Hague in the Netherlands, the court was established in 1998 to prosecute those behind genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including leaders who attack groups because of their religion.

The court is currently undertaking more than a dozen formal investigations, including into Afghanistan, Georgia and Bangladesh/Myanmar, where the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority group suffered death and displacement in a security crackdown in 2017.

The court has a further 13 so-called preliminary examinations, including in Ukraine, Venezuela and the Philippines.

The court last month ruled it has jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian land, angering Israel. An investigation into atrocities by Americans in Afghanistan led the US Trump administration to slap sanctions on Ms Bensouda and other court officials last year.