March 17, 2023, 12:04 PM
March 17, 2023, 12:04 PM
The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced Friday that it issued an order Arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putinfor the deportation of children in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
It also issued an arrest warrant for the same reason, considered a war crime, against Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, the Hague-based court said in a statement.
Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of the population [de niños] and the illegal transfer of population [de niños] from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” the court said.
“The crimes would have been committed on Ukrainian territory occupied at least since February 24, 2022,” the court continued.
There are “reasonable grounds to believe that Putin is personally responsible for the aforementioned crimes,” it added.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan declared this month after a visit to Ukraine that the alleged child abductions were the subject of “priority investigation.”
The court, created in 2002 to judge the worst crimes committed in the world, has been investigating for more than a year possible war crimes or crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine during the Russian offensive.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are members of the ICC, but kyiv accepted the court’s jurisdiction over its territory and works with the prosecutor.
The experts admitted that it was unlikely that Moscow will hand over the suspects to the court. Russia rejects the war crimes accusations.
Russia calls Putin’s arrest warrant “meaningless”
Russia on Friday denounced a “meaningless” legal decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
“The decisions of the International Criminal Court are meaningless for our country, even from a legal point of view,” the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, wrote on Telegram, without expressly mentioning Putin in her message.
