Qatar allegedly promised to “look after” the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan after he issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant in 2024, according to a reported witness statement submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

The statement was submitted by an anonymous individual familiar with a reported Qatar-commissioned operation by the Highgate and Elicius intelligence firms to discredit a woman who accused Khan of sexual abuse, according to an editorial published Monday in the Wall Street Journal, which said it reviewed the document along with several supporting audio recordings.

The witness statement describes one of the recordings, from August 5, involving a conversation by the private intelligence team about Khan after a source from Elicus claimed the Mossad spy agency believed the prosecutor was a Qatari agent.

“I spoke to the client about it,” the intelligence operation’s manager was reportedly heard saying in the audio clip, “and they weren’t surprised that it had leaked that they were wrapping their arms around him.”

“It’s all in the context of issuing the warrant. That was basically the deal. He was like, ‘I want to issue the warrant, but I’m terrified to do it.’ And they said, ‘if you do it, then we’ll look after you,’” the manager reportedly said, referring to the arrest warrants.

Two sources confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that private investigators discussing a “client” and “Q country” in the recordings were referring to Qatar.

When asked, the manager was said to affirm that Khan was supported by the Qatari state, and not just by a specific sheikh. “No, it’s the state,” he said, according to the report.

In a June 3 recording, investigators are heard discussing attempts to link Khan’s accuser to Israel, as part of efforts to discredit her. Despite their endeavors, no such information was uncovered, according to the Guardian report on the operation in November.

Among the points discussed by the investigators is whether the woman “didn’t have a Jewish grandmother,” or if she had a secret Israeli passport — a theory the editorial said was noted in a June 6 document by Highgate to Elicius.

In a reported June 15 recording, an investigator claimed that Khan’s accuser’s husband worked for a company........

© The Times of Israel