Global Courant 2023-05-20 09:07:04
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan is wanted for arrest in Russia on war crimes charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has issued an arrest warrant for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who prepared an arrest warrant in March for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges, Russian media reported Friday.
Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the Hague war crimes court, has been added to the interior ministry’s wanted list, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported on Friday, citing the ministry’s database.
A photo of the ICC prosecutor, who is a citizen of the United Kingdom, was seen in the database of the Russian Interior Ministry on Friday. according to news reports.
Russia’s Commission of Inquiry, which deals with major crimes, said in March that Khan was being investigated for the “criminal prosecution of a person known to be innocent” – in reference to the war crimes charges against Putin.
The ICC prosecutor was also under investigation for allegedly preparing “an attack against a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection,” Russian investigators said at the time.
The searched entry described Khan as a man born on March 30, 1970, in Edinburgh, Scotland, but did not specify his offense.
Russia opened the criminal investigation into Khan after the ICC announced that an arrest warrant had been issued against Putin over allegations that he had committed war crimes by unlawfully deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The International Court of Justice also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights.
Kiev says more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the full-scale invasion of Moscow began in February 2022, of which more than 4,000 are believed to be orphans. Many would have been placed in institutions and foster homes.
In announcing the arrest warrants in March, the ICC said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the abductions of Ukrainian children and “because he committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or committed through others”. and) for his failure to exercise proper control over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts”.
The ICC was later forced to rack worrying after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to hit the war crimes court in The Hague with hypersonic missiles. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier this month called the ICC “a puppet in the hands of the so-called collective West,” the Moscow Times reported.
Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, has said the order is “null and void”.
At the time, Ukrainian Attorney General Andriy Kostin praised the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants.
“The world has received a signal that the Russian regime is criminal and that its leaders and accomplices will be held accountable,” he said.
“This is a historic decision for Ukraine and the entire system of international law.”
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