After arrest warrant for Putin, Russia opens case in opposition to ICC | Russia-Ukraine warfare Information

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

Russia’s prime investigative physique has opened a legal case in opposition to the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on warfare crimes fees.

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 warfare 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 mentioned there have been no grounds for legal legal responsibility on Putin’s half, and heads of state loved absolute immunity beneath a 1973 United Nations conference.

“The legal prosecution is clearly unlawful, since there are not any grounds for legal legal responsibility,” the Russian assertion mentioned.

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

The prosecutor and judges had been additionally suspected of “getting 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 shouldn’t be a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC.

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

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

“In response to the ICC statute, which has 123 state events, two-thirds of the entire worldwide group, the court docket has jurisdiction over crimes dedicated within the territory of a state celebration or a state which has accepted its jurisdiction. Ukraine has accepted the ICC twice – in 2014 after which in 2015,” Hofmanski mentioned.

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 in opposition to a serving president was an vital symbolic step to pin duty on him for the implications 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 warfare began practically 13 months in the past.

Russia has publicly mentioned it has introduced 1000’s of Ukrainian kids to Russia in what it presents as a humanitarian marketing campaign to guard orphans and deserted kids within the battle zone.