Opposition seeks Putin’s arrest

The main opposition party in South Africa announced on Tuesday that it has taken legal action to compel the government to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he attends an upcoming summit in the country.

The legal action comes after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin in relation to allegations of unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. Putin is scheduled to visit Cape Town in August for a meeting of the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The Democratic Alliance (DA) party initiated the court application to ensure that the government fulfills its obligations by detaining Putin and handing him over to the ICC if he sets foot in South Africa.

The DA’s move seeks to avoid a repeat of a similar situation in 2015 when South Africa failed to arrest then-Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was also wanted by the ICC. The South African government has granted diplomatic immunity to officials attending the BRICS meetings, but it stated that such immunities do not override any international arrest warrants. South Africa, as an ICC member, is facing a diplomatic dilemma in handling this situation, as it has close diplomatic ties with Russia.