The In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) has ad­mit­ted Is­rael Khan, SC, to its court list as an ad­vo­cate at­tor­ney to rep­re­sent ac­cused peo­ple charged with in­ter­na­tion­al crimes. By let­ter dat­ed March 13, 2024, Mr Uladz­imir Paulous­ki, Reg­is­trar of the ICC, the Hauge, Nether­lands in­formed Khan that he had been ad­mit­ted to the list of coun­sel of the ICC.

In ac­cept­ing and ap­prov­ing Khan’s ap­pli­ca­tion to be in­clud­ed on the list of coun­sel, the Reg­is­trar of the ICC ac­knowl­edged and ac­cept­ed that he was a well-es­tab­lished and ex­pe­ri­enced crim­i­nal ad­vo­cate at­tor­ney and head of Justi­tia Om­nibus Law Cham­bers es­tab­lished in 1979 in T&T.

He is the most ex­pe­ri­enced ac­tive ad­vo­cate at the Crim­i­nal Bar of T&T, and his law cham­bers wide­ly re­gard­ed as hav­ing ex­pe­ri­enced and able lawyers of crim­i­nal law.

No­table mem­bers of his cham­bers in­clude Daniel I Khan, a for­mer in­spec­tor of pris­ons of T&T and a lead­ing crim­i­nal de­fence ap­peals coun­sel; and Ula Nathai Lutch­man, the pros­e­cu­tor in the tri­al of Pres­i­dent Charles Tay­lor of Liberia at the Spe­cial Court of Sier­ra Leone, The Hauge, to its oth­er most able and tal­ent­ed ju­nior mem­bers.

n Khan’s no­table mat­ters

• 2018 (on­go­ing): Spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor in the pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry against the Op­po­si­tion Leader, for­mer prime min­is­ter among oth­er se­nior of­fi­cials for In­cit­ing to Ri­ot fol­low­ing the Ri­ots of Feb­ru­ary 2017 in Roseau, Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca.

• 2013: Spe­cial lead pros­e­cu­tor to oth­er se­nior coun­sel and state at­tor­neys in the kid­nap for ran­som/mur­der mat­ter of The State vs Sher­von Pe­ters and oth­ers (12 ac­cused men) for the mur­der of Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man.

• 2000: Ex­tra­di­tion of Ab­dul Kadir, Ka­reem Ibrahim and Ab­del Nur for con­spir­a­cy to “blow up” JFK Air­port. In this mat­ter, James Lewis, QC, Is­rael B Khan, SC, and David West ap­peared for the re­quest­ing State (USA).

n Awards/recog­ni­tion

• Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, Jan­u­ary 2023: The Op­po­si­tion re­quest­ed the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er Mr Is­rael B Ra­jah-Khan, Se­nior Coun­sel, for Pres­i­dent of the T&T: “Giv­en Mr Khan’s fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent track record, sig­nif­i­cant ex­pe­ri­ence with­in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty as well as his dy­nam­ic con­tri­bu­tions to our na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, we are of the view that he is a suit­able can­di­date for this dis­tin­guished of­fice.”

• Award­ed Silk for the Re­pub­lic of T&T by His Ex­cel­len­cy Arthur N R Robin­son TC, OCC, SC, Pres­i­dent and Com­man­der-in-Chief of the Re­pub­lic of T&T in No­vem­ber 2000.

• Award­ed pres­ti­gious recog­ni­tion by the Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Peo­ple of In­di­an Ori­gin for the strug­gle and even­tu­al vic­to­ry in the lo­cal court for the fun­da­men­tal right to wear a Nehru Suit (a tra­di­tion­al In­di­an jack­et/gar­ment) be­fit­ting for the dig­ni­ty of the court, 2014.

n Com­mis­sions of En­quiry

• 1982: Jus­tice Cross (Sole Com­mis­sion­er). St James “Col­lege” En­quiry. Probe in­to an al­le­ga­tion of a vi­o­lent at­tack on cit­i­zens by sol­diers at “Col­lege” Bar. Khan rep­re­sent­ed three sol­diers.

• 1987: La Tin­ta En­quiry: Khan head­ed a team of at­tor­neys (Is­rael B Khan SC, Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon, Gilbert Pe­ter­son), and rep­re­sent­ed 15 po­lice of­fi­cers whose con­duct was un­der re­view.

• 2007: En­quiry un­der Sec­tion 137 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T: Ques­tion of re­mov­ing Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice from of­fice. Stan­ley Mar­cus, SC, Is­rael B Khan, SC, Ian Ben­jamin and Annabel­la Boynes rep­re­sent­ed Chief Mag­is­trate Mr Sher­man Mc Nicolls.

• 2008-2009: Mem­ber of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Pub­lic Con­struc­tion In­dus­try and the Op­er­a­tion of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T.

• 2011: State of Emer­gency: head­ed a group of lawyers as ad­vis­ers to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in re­la­tion to ar­rest­ed peo­ple dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

n Pub­li­ca­tions

1.  Scales of Jus­tice (1993)–pub­lished by Le­gal Books Lim­it­ed.

2. The Role and Du­ty of Coun­sel–Feb­ru­ary 1998: Lec­ture Notes for the Course “Sta­tus, Rights and Oblig­a­tions of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion” Hugh Wood­ing Law School.

3. Con­sti­tu­tion—Par­ty and Gov­ern­ment—(1) The Prime Min­is­ter, His Pow­er and Role, (2) Po­lit­i­cal Lead­er­ship and Cab­i­net Re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, (3) Dis­ci­pline: Par­ty and Gov­ern­ment. Pages 159–176 Scales of Jus­tice.

n ↓Mem­ber­ship of Or­gan­i­sa­tions

• 1987-1991: Al­der­man: East St George Coun­ty Coun­cil

• 1986-1991: Chair­man: NAR St Au­gus­tine Con­stituen­cy

• 1998-2015: Com­mis­sion­er: Law Re­form Com­mis­sion

• 1988-1991: Le­gal Ad­vis­er: Na­tion­al Crime Com­mis­sion (Cab­i­net ap­point­ed)

• 2000-2003: Di­rec­tor/Chair­man: Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty

• 2013-2015: Di­rec­tor/Chair­man: Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty

• 2011-2015: Chair­man: Po­lice Pro­tec­tive Com­pen­sa­tion Com­mit­tee

• 2012-2015: Chair­man: Firearms Ap­peal Board

• 2022-present: Pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion

• Se­nior Le­gal Ad­vis­er: Na­tion­al Land Ten­ants and Ratepay­ers As­so­ci­a­tion

• Mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go