THE HAGUE, June 9 -- The courtroom where Karim Khan has spent five years building war crimes cases against the most powerful figures on earth is now the backdrop for his own reckoning. The prosecutor who secured arrest warrants for a sitting head of government was suspended Monday by the same body that put him in office, forced out in a process that has no precedent in the ICC's 23-year history and no certain end.

The Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties, the 21-member executive committee of the court's governing body, voted by qualified majority to suspend Khan from duty with immediate effect and refer his disciplinary proceedings to the full Assembly of States Parties for a final decision. A special session of all 125 member states...