Arrest warrant for Putin: Moscow opens criminal investigation against ICC magistrates

Russia announced Monday the opening of a criminal investigation against the prosecutor and three judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the issuance by this court of an arrest warrant targeting Vladimir Putin for the “deportation” illegal child abuse in Ukraine.

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These magistrates, including ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, “issued illegal decisions (aiming to) arrest the President of the Russian Federation and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights,” the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement. .

“A criminal investigation has been opened”, it is specified.

Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, is thus targeted on the grounds of having “initiated criminal proceedings against a notoriously innocent person, combined with the unlawful accusation of having committed a serious or particularly serious crime” , as well as “preparing an attack on a representative of a foreign state”.

Vladimir Putin is accused by the ICC, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, of war crimes for the “deportation” of thousands of Ukrainian children in the context of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

If Volodymyr Zelensky called this decision “historic” and Joe Biden “justified”, Moscow derided it as “null and void”, because Russia is not a member of the ICC and therefore does not recognize not the jurisdiction of this court, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

According to the Russian Investigative Committee, “criminal prosecution is obviously illegal, since there is no ground for criminal liability”. He indicated that Vladimir Putin, as head of state, “enjoys absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign states”.

“For the moment it is only about opening a case”, but “if action were to be taken by Russia, we would protect the staff of the ICC”, reacted the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders from London where he is taking part in an international conference in support of the Court’s action in Ukraine.

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