Russia opens criminal case against ICC after Putin arrest warrant

Russia’s Investigative Committee says the Worldwide Legal Courtroom has knowingly accused an harmless individual of a criminal offense, in one other present of defiance towards the court docket.

Russia’s high investigative physique has opened a prison case towards the Worldwide Legal Courtroom (ICC) prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on struggle crimes prices.

The transfer was introduced on Monday by the state Investigative Committee in one other gesture of Russian defiance, three days after the ICC accused Putin and his kids’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the struggle crime of deporting kids from Ukraine to Russia.

A day after being accused, Putin made a shock go to to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian metropolis of Mariupol, the scene of a few of the worst devastation of his year-old invasion of Ukraine.

The committee stated there have been no grounds for prison legal responsibility on Putin’s half, and heads of state loved absolute immunity below a 1973 United Nations conference.

“The prison prosecution is clearly unlawful, since there aren’t any grounds for prison legal responsibility,” the Russian assertion stated.

The ICC prosecutor’s actions confirmed indicators of being crimes below Russian regulation, the committee stated, together with knowingly accusing an harmless individual of a criminal offense.

The prosecutor and judges have been additionally suspected of “making ready an assault on a consultant of a overseas state having fun with worldwide safety, so as to complicate worldwide relations”.

The Kremlin has referred to as the issuing of the ICC warrant outrageous however legally void, as Russia will not be a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC.

On Monday, it stated the court docket’s transfer was an indication of the “clear hostility” that exists towards Russia and towards Putin personally.

ICC President Piotr Hofmanski on Friday instructed Al Jazeera that it’s “utterly irrelevant” that Russia will not be a part of the ICC for the warrant to be issued.

“In line with the ICC statute, which has 123 state events, two-thirds of the entire worldwide neighborhood, the court docket has jurisdiction over crimes dedicated within the territory of a state get together or a state which has accepted its jurisdiction. Ukraine has accepted the ICC twice – in 2014 after which in 2015,” Hofmanski stated.

The ICC officers focused within the Russian investigation are prosecutor Karim Khan, a British lawyer, and judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez.

The ICC’s transfer obliges the court docket’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and switch him to The Hague for trial if he units foot on their territory.

Putin is unlikely to take that danger and Russia doesn’t extradite its residents, however the uncommon transfer towards a serving president was an essential symbolic step to pin accountability on him for the results of his invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine says greater than 16,000 kids have been illegally transferred to Russia or Russian-occupied territories for the reason that struggle began practically 13 months in the past.

Russia has publicly stated it has introduced hundreds of Ukrainian kids to Russia in what it presents as a humanitarian marketing campaign to guard orphans and deserted kids within the battle zone.