A senior British lawyer has been appointed to oversee the international criminal court’s investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, the Guardian understands.
Andrew Cayley, a barrister and former military prosecutor, has recently joined the ICC after he was chosen by the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to lead the high-profile investigation.
Cayley is expected to take responsibility for the day-to-day running of the complex case and will work on the investigation with an American lawyer, Brenda Hollis. He will report directly to Khan, also a British barrister.
The new appointment comes as Khan has moved to accelerate the ICC’s Palestine investigation, opened in 2021, and provide it with additional resources in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza.
Khan has put all parties involved in the war “on notice” and indicated that his office is “actively investigating” the current situation in Gaza. He said last month the investigation was “being taken forward as a matter of the utmost urgency”.
Cayley arrives at the ICC as the politically sensitive case poses what sources familiar with the investigation say is viewed as a major test for the prosecutor’s office.
The investigation presents significant legal and operational challenges for Khan. Israel does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction and its political leaders have been openly hostile towards the judicial body. It is understood Khan has attempted to arrange visits to Gaza but Israel has refused him entry.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor confirmed Cayley had joined the court as a principal trial lawyer overseeing the unit of investigators responsible for the Palestine case.
Cayley is well known in The Hague having worked at the ICC in the 2000s and served as a prosecutor and defence counsel in multiple international criminal tribunals.
The barrister recently stepped down as chief of the inspectorate that oversees the work of England and Wales’ Crown Prosecution Service.
He was previously the UK’s chief military prosecutor. While in this role, Cayley played a key role in a process that resulted in the former ICC prosecutor deciding in 2020 to abandon a long-running investigation into allegations that UK military personnel committed war crimes in Iraq.
Cayley has been open about his support for the UK’s ruling Conservative party. He donated £10,000 to the Tories in 2019 and later insisted his status as a “card-carrying member” of the party had no effect on his independence as a prosecutor.
The ICC prosecutes individuals and is separate to the international court of justice (ICJ), also in The Hague, which is considering cases about Israel’s offensive in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian lands.
The ICC investigation dates back to 2015 when Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, opened a preliminary examination that considered allegations of war crimes by Israel’s armed forces and Palestinian militants in the occupied territories.
Six years later, a panel of ICC judges accepted that the prosecutor had the jurisdiction to pursue a full criminal investigation. Bensouda launched the case shortly before completing her nine-year term in June 2021, when she was replaced by Khan.
