MEE reported exclusively on Saturday that the court’s chief prosecutor had been cleared of any wrongdoing by a panel of three senior judges appointed by the bureau of the ASP, the ICC’s governing body, to review the findings of a United Nations investigation into complaints of alleged sexual misconduct.

MEE has since obtained a copy of the panel’s confidential report. But MEE understands that a minority of the 21 bureau members, mainly representatives from western states, are opposed to the panel’s report and are of the opinion that it should be dropped.

These members are seeking to block the panel’s report from the rest of the ASP and to re-characterise the findings based on their own assessment of the OIOS report, two senior diplomatic sources briefed on a recent bureau meeting told MEE.