YouSaid · the spoken record

Karim Khan

lines on the record: 54
first: 2024-09-05
most recent: 2024-09-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Identified and sent packing at Schipol Airport. So there's a multiple layers of attempts by intelligence communities inside and outside. But I think we need to, again, it's not a soundbite. There are people everywhere that I speak to, the Rohingya. I was in Adri last year or earlier this year sitting on the floor with people and they have nothing. You could taste the dust in your mouth and they're coming and they expect that this promises of never again, this promise of a new world, this promise of more civilized standards of equity. I don't understand how they believe it, but they do. And I think the least we can do is focus on them and try to do our small bit to make the less world a little less brutal and a little more just.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, George Bunner's short said the tragedy of man is he's a genius tethered to a dying animal. We're all going to end up in a grave one day. I think it's trying in the moments we have to, with all the fallibilities, with all the missteps and stumbles along the way that's part of being human, trying to do the right thing. And in the end, I think public life at large, whether one is politician or whether one is a domestic prosecute or judge, human rights defenders around the world are facing difficulties. It's about having an opportunity to do something that counts. And I think that's what we must do. And I don't think too much of that. We're not reckless. We try to be prudent. And the threats are real. I mean, the Dutch had said very publicly in 2021 a few months after I was elected that the FSB had placed somebody in my office. They were luckily”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know I don't take it as frightening, and one is concerned about the organization, one is concerned about the mandate and staff and family. Again, maybe it's a function of experience or family. All of us”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Argument will detest you, hate you, or be unsatisfied, but that quest to have a compass, a moral compass, a legal compass, which is of general application. I think that's what we need to, as a country, to have a leading voice in the world. I think it's what's needed by all permanent members of the Security Council, and I think it's definitely welcome as Prosecutor of the ICC.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The former government was very supportive on a variety of work, and for example, I attended ministerials in London and in The Hague with the Foreign Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister then supporting what the court was doing, what I was doing in Ukraine. Yes, there's a difference of tone and I think of substance in relation to international law by the new government. And I think that's welcome because my own view is that this country that I love as a Brit, as an independent prosecutor, is a country that is defined by doing the right thing, by founding conventions, whether it's the European Convention for Human Rights or being a founding member of the International Criminal Court, and striving to be better, to be constantly being a better version of itself. It's not easy. Sometimes it brings you in conflict, very often both sides of an”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I applaud it. I mean, we've been working with many national authorities, both in my last mandate as an Assistant Secretary General and the Special Advisor to the Secretary General on investigating Daesh, ISIS in Iraq. We're seeing a maturity under universal jurisdiction in Germany, in France. They've tried ISIS individuals there. There's matters proceeding in Argentina in relation to the Rohingya and other matters. We need to build a community of practice in which there's no one silver bullet. The ICC is a court of last resort. It can be a catalyst. It's there to do its job. But I very much believe that we should be a hub. We're not an apex court. We should be sharing information. We've done it in relation to publicly, for example, in Libya. We're part of a joint investigative team with the United Kingdom and France and Netherlands and Spain and Italy and Europol trying to make sure that evidence”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“International law is a work in progress. Very few countries come to law with completely clean hands in their history. We're living in a world where there's been slavery, there's been excesses of colonialism, there's been apartheid in South Africa and elsewhere. There's been so many blights on humanity. But going back to the gas chambers, Back to the killing fields of Cambodia or the concentration camps of the former Yugoslavia or amputations of Sierra Leone. Want for our children to have a world driven by grab what you can? Get what you want, brute power over innocence. Do you want a world that looks like the Wild West? Or do you want a world that has a fighting chance to be regulated evenly by something that I think is needed, which is the law?”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sites, churches, and mosques and synagogues and temples around the world. This should be prohibited. This is the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. Remember, why did we have these conventions renewed in 1949? It was the ugly scars, the deep wounds of the Second World War and the Great War. We must follow the process and then respect what judges do.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I'm not going to comment on messages. You can't, and I know maybe things are not the way even domestically a couple of decades ago, but judges normally speak through their decisions. And I think I respect an independent judiciary. Any party, if they don't like decisions, can appeal or one can resubmit applications. I think what we do, we have a process, and one should respect that process, give the court space. I said that as a defense council. I've said it as a victims counsel. I've said it as prosecutor. Give the process space if we believe in a world in which the rules-based system is worth the paper it's written on, if we believe in a world in which there are some basic principles that are the Nuremberg principles that are preventing genocide or rapes or destruction of people's homes, their dwellings, their religion.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everybody, and I've given that advice as Defence Counsel, the first person who voluntarily surrendered before the court was one of my clients, Abu Gada. The case was not confirmed. If people have confidence in what they say, if they say this is all a frivolous, vexatious tissue of lies, well, you know, there's no way to hide in the courtroom appear, defend, and there'll be a decision. But those that have some concern normally may adopt a different posture in terms of Palestine, there's no warrant. Everyone's presumed innocent, but the judges are seized of an application and the judges will rul it in due course. And I think probably I should leave that there because on the merits, the judges are supreme.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't agree, I think, if you look at the former Yugoslavia decisions were made before Dayton that were important, the issue of deterrence is an important one, and we have this discretion to make the applications. And ultimately, people should be, I think, a little bit more relaxed. I haven't seen a ceasefire since the application. There are judges involved in the case.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if anybody knows the judges of the court, they will know that they have experience and they've been elected by states in the same way that I have. Been 13 previous cases where announcements were made by my predecessors before warrants were issued. It happened by the first prosecutor in Libya, in Kenya, in Sudan and in others. I did it in Georgia and there wasn't a whisper. I take the view generally that if there's an immediate arrest opportunity, there's a very strong argument for filing confidentially because there may be an arrest opportunity. When there's not, the balance should be in favor of deterrence moving forward. And given all the comments of comply now don't complain later, the intensification, I decided to make a public statement that later that day I would be filing something confidentially. I think that's the right approach.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Attempt to litigate in the press. These are matters before the court, and others must do whatever they think appropriate.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They will concede. I've seen the evidence. They haven't. The application is not public. It is confidential. It is filed to the chamber. So they are guessing what evidence has been submitted. We have discharged our responsibilities. The investigation was led by Brenda Hollis, a US national, that was the chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and Andrew Cayley, who was the British King's Council, who was the British Director of Service Prosecutions, the senior prosecutor for the British Armed Forces, and more recently His Majesty's Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service. So we have very formidable people involved. They have their ethics, they have a pedigree internationally before many different courts. And I think we have left it to the judges now to decide, and others must do what they think is appropriate.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I mean, I had one complaint, I was notified that the Barstandards Board dismissed one from some others, but on broadly the same lines at the beginning of the month, and yes, this was a threat. We know our ethical responsibilities under the BAR Code of Conduct. Also, as the elected prosecutor of the ICC, we've submitted evidence, we've considered evidence, we have a duty to investigate incriminating and exonerating evidence equally. Also, any state is in the United States filed a Miki submissions, amicus submissions. Submissions on the issues before the court, friend of the court, it means Lamicus Curiae. Israel didn't. But we know our responsibilities, but if people want to report me to the Bauer Council, they can.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Own engagement. I mean, I gave my first statement, I think, on the 12th of October. I went to Rafa, I couldn't get into Gaza. I went into kibbutzim and in Ramallah and I said repeatedly, since last year, comply with the law now. Don't complain later. The Secretary General of the United Nations was talking about even war has rules. Martin Griffiths, the head of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, was making it clear the risk of famine and starvation. The ICRC, the WHO, all these Nobel Prize winners, and the evidence on the ground, the doctors that were in these hospitals seeing amputations without anesthetic. So we were investigating things impartially, objectively, and at the same time noting that there wasn't any meaningful accountability efforts regarding Hamas or in relation to allegations against Israel. And this is why”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, what did Kipling say if you can take it that the truth being twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, one mind turns slightly to that couplet of if. But if that was the case, if one was driven by these extraneous factors, I was pointed in June 2021. I've had quiet engagements with state parties and non-state parties, including Palestine and Israel, since that time. I was focused on the evidence. I think any right thinking person would see the allegations coming out of the 7th of October. As outrageous, the people in those kimbutsim, civilians, babies, old, infirm, ripped from their homes and taken underground or to other locations is a great breach of the Geneva Conventions, hostage-taking, willful killing. It demanded action and I needed evidence. It's not because it's a knee-jerk reaction. And the same applies to”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obscenity that how on earth is that possible? I think we did what was right. We had evidence that we carefully scrutinized, we put in place additional measures in terms of the rigor that was required, the threshold determination that I found was met, that the panel I appointed was met. And we applied on that basis. I think, Nick, I think that that argument really is a degree of subterfuge. It's raised by those that don't want any action at all in the situation.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, this was an argument or narrative that was peddled. The idea of equivalence really is conjured up. I mean, I'd been to those kibbutzi and I've spoken to the families of that were ripped from their homes, who've lost their loved ones, whose family members remain hostages. Require investigation, and that underpins the applications for warrants. But the truth of the matter is what could I have done? If one had applied for warrants for Hamas and not against looked at the evidence, if the evidence compelled action in Israel at that time 30,000 plus 40,000 people had been killed in Gaza, they'd say, well, this is a weak court that is influenced, a weak prosecutor influenced by power dynamics. If one had applied for warrants in relation to Israeli officials and not for Gaza, they'd say, well, this is a”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's a process in the court in which these issues of alleged non-cooperation. That is what is found, can be determined.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The court is in communications with them, and I think on that I will leave it because there's a process that is underway in which states can engage and the judges can make certain recommendations to the Assembly of State Parties in cases where non-cooperation may be found. So I don't want to prejudge any issues. This is an issue between Mongolia and the judges and the court at the moment.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nothing's permanent. Life is transitory. And every political life ends in failure, as the saying goes. So these things sometimes, our functions are politics, but also of stamina, collective will, and a demand that is something above us. And, you know, in England, we had that adage, the king is under no man but God and the law. I think that needs to apply with a bit more vigour internationally as well.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And by the same token, it's the first time he's traveled since the warrant to a state party. Since the warrant was issued by the judges, but to the main question, people really laughed or thumbed their noses when the Yugoslav tribunal sought warrants for Karadic and Meladic, never mind Milosevic. They looked away as a fool's errand when the special court of Sierra Leone judges issued warrants against President Charles Taylor. But history has shown that those individuals who were very powerful in their countries and in their regions, they did see the inside of a courtroom. So history does show with persistent his inabre in the African Special Court there are many examples also that the space for doing what you want of untrammeled power and fettered by some higher responsibilities is becoming a smaller space and what we have to show is that compliance is in the interests of the international community but ultimately for the people that hold power”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not as pessimistic as people say, but at the same time, our job is to apply for the warrants, then states have to try to execute it. Yes, President Putin yesterday went into, or the day before went into Mongolia. They didn't execute the arrest warrant. He didn't travel, he, in the end, did not travel to South Africa.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's very sad. A permanent member of the Security Council, Russian is a great country, literature, music, founder of the United Nations, an important role against fascism, gave no joy, didn't give a thrill. It's a sad day when a permanent member of the Security Council, the leader of a government, has to be subject to an application for arrest.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Various risks involved, I thought it was quite straightforward that we should open an investigation. And I made also, gave an invitation to states if they wanted to expedite it, they could refer the situation to my office because then we didn't need judicial permission. We could just move forward more quickly. And I think when I've been on the ground and one sees the stories, the account sees the destruction and sees the words coming out of individuals, including President Putin and Madam Lavlova. I think, again, applying the equal yardstick of the law, it wasn't complex because you just look at what's said, you look at what the law requires, you look at what's done, you see what's not being done, and it leads to a conclusion. It's not a equation, simultaneous equation to balance, but they're difficult knowing the consequences.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'll go back. I met the prosecutor general of Ukraine in 2021 or November 2021. I was elected and I took office in June 2021. And bear in mind they had issued a declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the court back in 2014 and 2015. And I told her at that time I didn't have an intention of opening a situation. We didn't have resources. Ukraine had not ratified at the time and we had so many other responsibilities. And I personally did not think I'm not a political analyst. I didn't think it made any sense for the Russian Federation to go into Ukraine. But when it did and we saw the allegations that were coming from that area,”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And for them as well, I think they They all have their own coping mechanisms. Those that have gone They are giving testimony for family members that are no more. And so I think this cascading both empathy but sense of responsibility that a truth be told or the truth be told, and there be a process to acknowledge what was wrong, what should never have happened in the first place is something that actually protects one who is involved in that process. At least that's the way I probably deal with it myself.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I said everyone is different. I really do, it goes back to, you asked me not to consider it, I focus on people. Suffering And when you look at them face to face, Expectation of justice, and I find it remarkable as a community I represent for a while, the charm community of Albania and allegations of what they injured after the Second World War. But you look at these old people very often. And suddenly when they start talking, look at their eyes, the wrinkles vanish, you see somebody that was 20 or 30. And I think it's that their own belief that they're giving their time. They're recounting their stories and they want. Be seen. Very often these are the most marginalized communities. And I think that genuinely is what I focus on.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there's much more awareness now than in the 1990s about well-being at work across types of work in terms of The impact of secondary trauma, we've published guidelines with Eurojust, whether it's for Ukraine, but for general application, on certain methodologies that can be adopted by staff, by colleagues, by interpreters very often, because interpreters interpret in the first person. So, can you be more profound that can reduce the scope of secondary trauma and different skills? And also using technology increasingly to try to, with data, to make sure you red flag certain content so that people are not unnecessarily forgetting.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That justice somehow, in their terms, can still play a part in them moving forward. I think it's one of the most profound things I've seen.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, both in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. In every situation, but one has heard accounts of people being raped and the consequences on their life. It doesn't go away. And that's why very often it's a bit of a fig leaf to talk about justice. When I was in Iraq investigating ISIS, Daesh for three years, I used to tell communities it's actually not about justice. Justice died the first time a Yazidi is taken and raped a child is ripped from the family and the father and elders are executed. They're made into child soldiers. It is about accountability. And I think that's something that also sustains. I think if we look at the realities, not the polemics or the adjectives that are used that can be described in situations, just look at what people have endured and then their amazing resilience and hope against their experience.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think honestly, I wasn't wise enough. I saw a judicial institution. I saw an opportunity to be part of it, to, I'd prosecuted in the CPS as a senior prosecutor here to be part of a team. And I didn't know enough, and I was not wise enough to look and to think about the The courage, the heroism, or the impact of those that have endured rapes or amputations or killings or suffering or abject loss.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's completely different work. And my mother was a nurse, and my father was a dermatologist, but they tried their best. I mean, they went to India, Pakistan, the Gambia many times, to even Belarus after Chernobyl, to do free clinics and to try to help and get drug companies to donate medicines and take containers over. So they were wonderful people, but they tried to help the local community and outside.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I remember telling him even when he was ill with cancer, that please pray, I hope I was at the law commission at the time. And I said, you know, it'd be my dream to work here. And so, yeah, it was a moment of, it was a poignant moment.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Didn't get the job straight away. No, no, no. He's a bit of a lottery Applied and it went into a black hole. I think many people applied to the United Nations. It went to a black hole and they kept on applying. And then there was a wonderful contact I made by persistence to get through to a Scotsman, Gavin Ruxton, who was the head of the war crimes office in Scotland. And I latched on to him poor cell. And every month or so, I would ring him and say, any developments. And my father passed away on the 6th of December 1996 and I got the offer, I think with a month of his passing to join the Yugoslav Tribunal.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the law can't operate in isolation. You do need political direction and many other solutions. But the law is clearly part of them. And against all odds, the United Nations, that was a moment after the Berlin Wall had fallen where people, a new world seemed very possible, driven by these higher principles, these normative values, and against odds with all the stalemate on political concrete solutions, the United Nations Security Council created the Yugoslav Tribunal. And I was incessant in throwing my hat in the ring.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did have a profound effect on me because in the 90s you'll remember the pictures from Sarajevo or the awful scenes, allegations of rapes and executions in detention camps in the former Yugoslavia. My parents did quite a lot with refugees that were coming in. The community also trying to help humanitarian assistance. And then you just saw this, I think Thatcher had just left and there was basically an arms embargo and you just saw these awful reports and it seemed that morality by itself A kind of idea that never again should demand a different type of response to civilians being targeted. I think it was just very obvious. I think everybody who could see that moment thought this can't be allowed to happen again and yet it did happen.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Already, I think 88, I started reading the law at King's College, so I think I was already embarked upon a law degree, but I think it underlined kind of my desire to serve and to get engaged in the law.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The police released the people that they had detained, and to the extent when I went back up to Yorkshire afterwards, there was a panic button in the laundry room, and there was, I think, I don't remember the exact amount, I think it was 30,000 or whatever, but there was a fatwa against my father and my cousin, Dr. Ahmedullah. So the police took it seriously and the assault was quite serious. It wasn't reported because of race relations and others. But it's the divisiveness. Again, it's a division that we, you know, any right-thinking person should say, look, we want people to bring communities together to celebrate diversity. And you can have disagreements secular discussions, arguments, but without violence or hate speech, never mind physical assaults.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They came in and they started assaulting my father and my mother were hit, my cousin was knocked unconscious and they retreated to the police station and Mullah stood on the ambulance and said we'll burn down the police station because the police and the town hall and the market was going on with all the locals.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your own family here, yes. So, my parents were very active in the community, and we used to have as a community, we still have very active interfaith. So there was an event, I remember, I was down in London, in fact, already, but in Batley, in Batley Town Hall. And it was an interfaith event, the Jewish community, Hindu and Sikh and Zorastrians and others would calm Christians. And then the police had advised them to cancel it. So it was on the morning, so my mother and my father and a brother, my two brothers and my cousin, who's a local GP, were there just to tell people, you know. And there were these, in those days, this organization called Hatminaburt, which is finality of the Prophet, and they'd come down to Wembley Conference Centre and then to Birmingham, and they'd go to the areas with concentrations of the Pakistani largely Muslim community.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I mean, my mother, first she's brought up by her grandfather, who was a Methodist preacher who was lovely and absolutely. I never met either any of my grandparents except my grandmother. But also in Pakistan, you're right, this community that I belong to. Ahmadiyya Muslim community, our motto is Love for All, Hatred for None, and are declared non Muslims. It's a crime to call ourselves a Muslim, to call a Mosque a mosque. Many people have been killed. Family members have been attacked or shot at.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not quite as stark as that, but you know, I think what it taught is I saw the elegance and the sincerity, the love of my mother and father. Truthfulness, the care for people of all communities. And I think that willingness to be yourself and try to serve left an impression. Maybe we're not nowhere near the quality of the person my mother and father are, but I think that whatever good is in me is large debt to them.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, I think like every listener, when you're blessed with loving parents, I think it's the biggest blessing one can have and then with loving families. My father was from Pakistan. My mother was a Yorkshire assault. I was born in Edinburgh, but we moved back down to Yorkshire when my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, finally accepted my father when my elder sister was born. My father moved back because he wanted the family to be in contact. And those were the days, you know, the 70s, there were, you know, the UK is always evolving and half caste and packy this and Pakistan it was a white white sheep. So I think”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sad. I mean, this is the kind of typical invective that sometimes people retreat to. I know who I am. I went to a synagogue. I think I was six years old with my late father and my mother in Leeds, our dentist or my father's colleague Dr. Rudy Lever, was beautifully reciting the Torah from the balcony upstairs. And I've engaged with the Jewish community in so many different ways. respect the Jewish teachings like I do all religions. So there's not a nouns, not a jot, not a scintilla of truth in the charge of anti-Semitism. But one needs to, and my responsibility, is I don't agree with the doctrine my country right or wrong. I don't agree with that one's allegiance somehow prevents an acknowledgement of, you know, there's no such thing as infallibility. And our job is to apply the law.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That they don't just think that we are a tool, an instrument of power, that we take our responsibilities as officers of the court seriously, and we try in a very imperfect world to apply the law equally based upon some common standards. And that's the job of the International Criminal Court.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the same mouths and learned minds and statesmen and stateswomen were also very supportive of what the court did vis- ⁇-vis Russia and in the Ukraine situation. So sometimes we have these unfortunate periods where one has great respect for certain countries and there are moments when the countries live up to those expectations. And there's moments, I think, when countries let themselves down. And what we have to do is being different and try to apply the law in a way that is equal because if we don't And importantly, if we're not seen to, we're going to lose the law, we're going to lose all the architecture, not just international criminal court that has been built on human suffering since Nuremberg, since the Second World War. There is clearly an assault underway that's been going on for quite some time attacking what has been called the rules-based system. And so it does require a way that the Global South, Latin America, Asia, Africa, people in the UK.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were a lot of it was interesting to look at it, whether it's some threats or promises that were made public, whether it's threats to defund the court or withdraw from the Rome Statute or whether it's issues against myself or my family, whether it's intelligence operations. I mean, there's a lot of noise. And I think...”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, many would say I'm in the wrong job if they don't like what I'm doing. And sometimes I may think I'm in the wrong job. It was quite a nice life I had before, but it's an opportunity to serve. And I think what we're doing is the antithesis of politics. It's about the equal application of the law, irrespective of whether one receives a round of applause from some quarters or a deafening din of condemnation and assaults of different types from another. The law should be blind. Lady Justice, above the old Bailey, is blind to power, to wealth, to connections, and we have to struggle to do our bit. And we have judges that must scrutinize every application we put forward.”
2024-09-05 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Karim Khan International Prosecutor One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source