According to a report by The Times of Israel on December 12, 2025, according to Karim Khan, the former head prosecutor of the ICC, a high-ranking official in the previous British government made the direct statement that the UK will cease financing to the ICC and quit the Rome Statute.
He warned that this measure will be implemented in the event that the court proceeds with its pursuit of arrest warrants for Yoav Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In his official statement to the ICC judges in May 2024, Khan made this claim in defence of his decision to seek those arrest warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
According to him, the threat was made during a heated phone call in April 2024.
The circumstances and the period strongly indicate that the British figure in question is then-Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron, who served under the Conservative caretaker administration that remained in office following Rishi Sunak’s call for the general election in July 2024 (though Khan did not state this explicitly).
During the time leading up to the election, the UK was functioning with restricted authority.
Khan made it clear that the goal of the threat was to get him to back down from the Israel inquiry or at least put it on hold.
He informed the judges that the official had forewarned him that the UK government would defund the ICC and formally withdraw from the Rome Statute—the treaty that created the court—if the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants were to be pursued.
An intolerable effort to obstruct justice and undermine the court’s independence, according to the former prosecutor, was this meddling.
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