South African opposition party asks ICC to force government to arrest Putin

JOHANNESBURG

South Africa’s main opposition party said Tuesday it has filed papers requesting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to compel its government to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he goes to the country for the upcoming BRICS summit.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant in March for Putin, who is expected to attend the summit in Johannesburg in late August.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said its preemptory court action is intended to ensure that South Africa, a signatory to the Rome Statute, upholds its obligations by arresting Putin and handing him over to The Hague-based court.

“President Putin is accused by the ICC of being responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of children, and the unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation under Articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute,” the DA said in a statement.

Russia's top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, will be among several ministers attending the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting in Cape Town in early June.

Russia is a close ally of South Africa, a fellow member of BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies that also includes Brazil, India and China.

South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it granted diplomatic immunity to foreign officials who will attend the BRICS meetings.

Clayson Monyela, the head of public diplomacy at South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said the notice in the gazette for diplomatic immunity is a standard conferment of immunities that South Africa does for all international conferences and summits irrespective of the level of participation.

He said immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals.

“These immunities do not override any warrant that may have been issued by any international tribunal against any attendee of the conference,” Monyela wrote on Twitter.

The DA further said it had approached the court to avoid a repeat of the 2015 incident, where former Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, wanted by the ICC, attended an AU summit in South Africa and was not arrested.

“The DA is seeking this declaratory order to ensure that there is no legal ambiguity relating to the procedure to be followed, and the obligations placed upon the state, should President Putin set foot in South Africa,” said the statement.