After months of inaction and whispered rumors of a brewing scandal, an anonymous account on X called @ICC_Leaks last week began to bring forward some of the allegations.

Israel’s allies in the US Congress have also seized on the potential scandal. Late. Lindsey Graham is seeking information on whether the allegations of misconduct played a role in Khan’s decision in May to cancel an aide’s planned visit to Israel and move forward with the war crimes charges.

“Another cloud — a moral one — hangs over Prosecutor Khan’s sudden decision to abandon engagement with Israel and seek warrants,” the South Carolina Republican wrote in a letter to the court’s watchdog.

Khan, who is 54 and married with two children, said in a statement that there was “no truth” to the allegations and that in 30 years of scandal-free investigative work, he has always stood with victims of sexual harassment and abuse.

Khan added that he would be willing, if asked, to cooperate with any investigation, saying it was important that all allegations “be carefully listened to, scrutinized and given due process.”

Without directly naming any entity, he noted that both he and the court have been the targets of “a wide range of attacks and threats” in recent months, some also targeting his wife and family. Khan’s office declined to provide details because the incidents are under investigation.

Under Khan, the ICC has become more assertive in combating crimes against humanity, war crimes and related atrocities. Along the way, it has added a growing list of enemies.

Last September, following the opening of an investigation into Russian atrocities in Ukraine, the court was hit with one debilitating cyber attack which left staff unable to work for weeks. It also employed an intern who was later a criminal accused in the United States of being a Russian spy.

Israel has also been waging its own lobbying campaign ever since the ICC admitted Palestine as a member and in 2015 opened a preliminary investigation into what the court called “the situation in the State of Palestine.”

London newspaper The Guardian and several Israeli news channels reported this summer that over the past decade Israel’s intelligence services allegedly targeted senior ICC staff, including putting Khan’s predecessors under surveillance and showing up at her house with envelopes stuffed with cash to discredit her.

Netanyahu himself, in the days leading up to Khan’s announcement of war crimes charges, called on the world’s democracies ” to use all means at their disposal “to block the court from what he called an ‘appalling of historic proportions.’

The Israeli Foreign Ministry referred the AP’s inquiries about the case to the Prime Minister’s Office, which did not respond. The US State Department declined to discuss the matter but said in a statement that it “takes all allegations of sexual harassment seriously, and we expect the court to do the same.”

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and several lawmakers in the Netherlands have called for an investigation into whether the Israeli embassy has conducted covert activities against the ICC.

Khan, a British international lawyer, had a long history of defending some of the world’s most ruthless strongmen – including Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor and the son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi – before becoming was elected in 2021 in a closed vote to become chief prosecutor.

The Rome Statute that established the court came into force in 2002, with the mandate to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide – but only when domestic courts fail to open their own investigations. Neither the United States, Israel, nor Russia are among the 124 member states that recognize the court’s authority, although their nationals can be prosecuted for crimes committed in countries that are members of the ICC.

Still, Washington welcomed Khan’s election, particularly after he moved to “de-prioritize” an investigation launched by his predecessor into abuses by US military personnel in Afghanistan.

Khan also broadened the court’s focus, prosecuting individuals outside Africa for the first time. He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of kidnapping children in Ukraine and launched an investigation into Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for his crackdown on protesters.

“He is by far the most professional lawyer the court has had in its short history,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “He is articulate, sophisticated with the media and has extensive courtroom experience with the highest evidentiary standards.”