Two British MPs have called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to establish an independent investigation into allegations that the former foreign secretary David Cameron attempted to interfere with the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
In a letter on Friday, shared exclusively with Middle East Eye, Labour MPs Richard Burgon and Imran Hussain urged the government to examine claims that a senior figure in the previous Conservative government threatened the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, with severe consequences if he pursued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.
The letter follows a recent submission to the ICC by Khan in which he alleged that a senior British official had warned him that the UK would defund and withdraw from the court in the leadup to his application for warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
The MPs cite multiple accounts, first revealed by Middle East Eye, identifying the official as Cameron.
“These allegations, if true, would represent an extremely serious attempt by the UK government to exert political pressure on an independent international judicial body,” Burgon and Hussain write.
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The prosecutor’s statement, submitted to the ICC’s appeal chamber in response to an Israeli request for Khan to be removed from the investigation and for the warrants to be dropped, appears to corroborate MEE’s previous reporting, which uncovered many details of efforts to undermine Khan, including Cameron’s explosive phone call to the prosecutor on 23 April 2024.
During the call, sources told MEE, Cameron told Khan that applying for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant would be “like dropping a hydrogen bomb”.
Cameron said it was one thing to investigate and prosecute Russia for a “war of aggression” on Ukraine, but quite another to prosecute Israel when it was “defending itself from the attacks of 7 October”.
Cameron did not respond to MEE’s requests for comment.
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”.
But the source said that rather than making a threat, Cameron pointed out that strong voices in the Conservative Party would push for defunding of the ICC and withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the founding charter of the ICC.
‘Deeply alarmed’
In their letter to Starmer, Burgon and Hussain note that in May 2024 more than 100 MPs and peers from 11 political parties signed a letter urging the then Conservative government to defend the independence of the ICC, following what they described as unprecedented public warnings by the court against political intimidation.
At the time, the office of the prosecutor issued a statement calling for “all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence its officials [to] cease immediately”.
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The MPs added that any attempt by UK ministers or officials to coerce the ICC could itself constitute a criminal offence under Article 70 of the Rome Statute, which prohibits interference with the administration of justice.
“We are therefore deeply alarmed by evidence now coming to light suggesting that it may have been the UK government that threatened the ICC – and that this interference could have come from the top of government,” the letter states.
The UK has long portrayed itself as a defender of international law and the rules-based international order, the MPs write, warning that any interference in war crimes investigations would risk “lasting damage to the UK’s international standing”.
They conclude that the seriousness of the allegations demands a “clear, transparent and independent examination” of whether ministers or senior officials sought to interfere with the ICC or threatened withdrawal from the Rome Statute or defunding the court.
In response to a request for comment, Starmer’s office referred the matter to the Foreign Office.
MEE has asked the Foreign Office for comment. It has previously refused to address the allegations.
