[Politics] Arrest warrant issued for Putin over war crime allegations

[Blackfire]

• Arrest warrant is more than symbolic, says ex-war crimes prosecutor
  Since it is unlikely Russia will hand over any suspects, several commentators have suggested that the ICC's arrest warrant is more of a symbolic move.

  But to think that is “understating its importance,” says Sir Geoffrey Nice, who was lead prosecutor at the war crimes trial of the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

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  This is an extremely valuable step by the ICC, says Nice, because it shows that there is enough evidence that Putin “is criminal, that the war is and has been criminal”.

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  But Nice says Putin has to be treated by the rest of the world as a criminal: “That’s very, very important”.

  If efforts by Ukraine to suspend Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council are successful, then motions might be passed to investigate crimes of aggression, says Nice, and that could lead to a trial by the ICC. 

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  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the ICC's arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin a "historic decision, from which historical responsibility will begin".

  He says Putin and children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova "have officially become suspects in a war crime".

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  "The deportation of Ukrainian children is the illegal transfer of thousands of our children to Russian territory," he said. "It would be impossible to carry out such a criminal operation without the order of the top leader of the terrorist state".

  Russia has rejected the ICC's decision and described the move as "outrageous and unacceptable".

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  Vladimir Putin is only the third serving president to have been issued an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

  Al-Bashir was issued with arrest warrants in 2009 and 2010 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were related to a conflict that broke out in Darfur in 2003 and led to the deaths of 300,000 people.

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  He was later ousted as president and in 2020, Sudan's rulers agreed to hand him over to the ICC, but this hasn't happened yet.

  The Gaddafi arrest warrant for crimes against humanity was issued by the ICC during anti-regime protests in 2011. The case was terminated after he was killed just months later.

   

   

  https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64994087