The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, The Netherlands, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan KC, will be visiting Ghana in the month of October 2024, his office has confirmed.
Karim Khan KC took office as the lead prosecutor at the ICC on 16 June 2021 and has since then visited many jurisdictions including Venezuela, Ukraine and the United States of America.Karim Asad Ahmad Khan KC, replaced his predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian national and lawyer, who was elected by consensus on 12 December 2011 as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by the Assembly of States Parties and was sworn into office on 15 June 2012.The ICC prosecutor made his intention to visit Ghana and GIMPA in particular known to Dr.
Kwaku Agyeman-Budu, the Dean of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Law School, and head of the African Centre of International Criminal Justice (ACICJ).The ACICJ at GIMPA Law School recently held an International Criminal Law Summer School in The Netherlands for students on the GIMPA Law School Master of Laws Degree (LL.M) in International Criminal Law and Justice programme, as well as selected Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B) students.As part of the summer school activities, the group visited the ICC over a period of three days, Tuesday, 16 to Thursday, 18 July 2024, and had lectures on the following topics: Introduction to the ICC, The Pre-Trial Division's role in the ICC's judicial process, The Trial Division's role in the ICC's judicial process, and The Appeals Division's role in the ICC's judicial process.The team also had a dialogue with Judge Solome Balungi Bossa, a Ugandan judge on the International Criminal Court who before her election to the ICC, was a member of the Court of Appeal in Uganda, which also doubles as the Constitutional Court in the Judiciary of Uganda.On day two of their visit to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the training sessions were first on the Office of the Prosecutor: Preliminary examinations, investigations, arrest warrants, and cooperation.
Secondly, the Office of the Prosecutor: Prosecution and Litigation, thirdly, the Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), fourthly, the Office of Public Counsel for Defence (OPCD) and lastly, the Trust Fund for VictimsOn the third and last day of the visit to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the team attended a hearing of the case of the Prosecutor versus Mahamat Said Abdel Kani which took place in Courtroom II.