The UK government has confirmed for the first time that a phone call took place between David Cameron and Karim Khan in which the then foreign secretary is alleged to have threatened the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court over his investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Details of the April 2024 phone call were first reported by Middle East Eye in June last year, but the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has repeatedly refused to comment on the matter.
However, it has now been forced in response to a Freedom of Information request to confirm that a phone conversation between the men took place.
The request was filed last month by Unredacted, a research unit based at the University of Westminster in London.
Unredacted focuses on national security issues. It asked the foreign office which ministers or officials were present on the call to Khan on 23 April 2024.
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In response, the Information Rights Unit at the foreign office said, in a letter dated 16 January 2026: “The then Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, was the only person present on the call on 23 April 2024 with Karim Khan.”
Official confirmation of the phone call comes after Khan himself said last month in a statement to the ICC that a “senior British official” threatened to withdraw the UK’s funding for the court in a phone call on 23 April.
MEE asked the foreign office for comment following Khan’s accusation, and whether it would investigate the allegations. But the foreign office declined to comment.
‘This raises serious questions about the role of a senior minister in threatening the impartiality of the ICC’
– Professor Sam Raphael
The phone call took place just one month before Khan sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and coincided with an intensifying pressure campaign targeting Khan over his investigation into the war in Gaza.
“The revelation confirms what has long been reported – that it was the then foreign secretary, David Cameron, who spoke on the phone with Khan in April 2024, at the height of the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” said Sam Raphael, professor in International Relations and Human Rights at the University of Westminster.
“This raises serious questions about the role of a senior minister in threatening the impartiality of the ICC, especially given the myriad forms of military, intelligence and diplomatic support provided by the UK to Israel at the time,” he told MEE.
“Although many would agree that the ‘rules-based international order’ is a fiction, if it was to mean anything then the UK and other powers would do all they can to support rather than undermine attempts to achieve accountability for genocide,” Raphael added.
“It is increasingly clear that the UK under the last government failed in this duty.”
‘Like dropping a hydrogen bomb’
Cameron, a former British prime minister who was appointed foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak in November 2023, phoned Khan while the prosecutor was on an official visit to Venezuela on 23 April 2024.
MEE revealed details of the call, based on information from a number of sources – including former staff in Khan’s office familiar with the conversation and who have seen the minutes of the meeting.
Cameron is alleged to have told Khan that applying for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant would be “like dropping a hydrogen bomb”.
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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”.
He claimed the warrants would have “profound implications” in Britain and within his own Conservative Party.
Cameron then said that if the ICC issued warrants for Israeli leaders, the UK would “defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute”.
Cameron told Khan he was “on the brink of making a huge mistake. You sometimes need to take a step back and consider things.”
Cameron has not responded 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.
Cameron served as a minister in the previous Conservative government, which was replaced by the current Labour government in July 2024.
Calls for investigation
The ICC is the only permanent international court that prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Leading international law experts have told MEE that Cameron’s alleged behaviour may amount to an attack on judicial independence, and could be prohibited under the Rome Statute and British law as an obstruction of justice.
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Two British MPs have called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to establish an independent investigation into the allegations.
The MPs said that any attempt by UK ministers or officials to coerce the ICC could constitute an offence under Article 70 of the Rome Statute, which prohibits interference with the administration of justice.
Since Khan’s decision to apply for the warrants in 2024, the court has faced a ferocious campaign by Israel and its allies, primarily the US, attempting to pressure him to drop the warrant applications and to end the entire investigation into alleged war crimes by Israeli leaders.
Since February, Donald Trump’s administration has imposed financial and visa sanctions on Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, six judges, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine and three Palestinian NGOs in connection with the Israel-Palestine investigation.
The US has also threatened sanctions against the court itself, which ICC officials consider a “doomsday scenario”.
ICC judges are currently examining an Israeli challenge to its jurisdiction over the Palestine situation, and a separate Israeli complaint, filed on 17 November, which seeks to disqualify the prosecutor over alleged lack of impartiality.
Khan has been on voluntary leave of absence since May 2025 pending a UN-led investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, which he strenuously denies.
