Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Monday it has opened a criminal case against the prosecutor and judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"The Russian Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case against prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Ahmad Khan, judges of the International Criminal Court Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala, and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez," it said.
According to the Committee, the case against the prosecutor was opened on charges of criminal prosecution of an innocent person with illegal charges of committing a grave or especially grave crime, as well as of plotting an attack on a foreign official enjoying international protection with the aim of aggravating international relations (part 2 of article 299, part 1 of article 30, and part 2 of article 360 of the Russian Criminal Code).
The judges are accused of illegal imprisonment and plotting an attack on a foreign official enjoying international protection with the aim of aggravating international relations (part 2 of article 301, part 1 of article 30, and part 2 of article 360 of the Russian Criminal Code).
The Committee recalled that on March 22, ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan lodged a motion with the ICC Pre-Trial Division for issuing a warrant for the arrest of Russian citizens and the judges returned illegal verdicts on the arrest of the Russian president and children’s rights ombudswoman.
"The criminal case is knowingly unlawful, since there are no grounds for bringing them to criminal responsibility," the Investigative Committee stressed, adding that in accordance with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons dated December 14, 1973, heads of state enjoy absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign states.
Kremlin ‘unfazed’ by Putin arrest warrant
The Russian leadership has taken note of the arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin announced by the International Criminal Court (ICC) last week but is not affected by it, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. It is just one of many attacks on Russia and its leader, he explained.
“We take notice [of such things], but if we were to take to heart every hostile action, certainly nothing good would come out of it,” Peskov told journalists on Monday. “We are unfazed” and keep working, he added.
The ICC’s pre-trial chamber announced on Friday that it was seeking the arrests of Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights. They are suspected of “unlawful deportation of population,” including children, which is how Kiev describes what Moscow regards as the evacuation to safety of civilians from territories at risk of attacks by Ukrainian troops.
The court acts on the authority of the Rome Statute, an international treaty that Russia never ratified and from which it fully withdrew in 2016. Several other major world powers, including the US, China, and India, do not recognize the ICC either. Washington infamously derailed the court’s attempt to investigate war crimes allegedly committed in Iraq and Afghanistan by US troops and their allies under President Donald Trump.
The Russian government dismissed the arrest warrant as irrelevant. Former President Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of the National Security Council, called the court earlier on Monday a “puny international organization.”
The ICC couldn’t even take into custody former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted from power in 2019, Medvedev noted. Its move against Putin was performative and only further degrades the system of international law, which is already under strain due to its pro-Western bias, the official argued.
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