Timesof24
Ex-Russia President Dmitry Medvedev in contrast the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin to rest room paper.
Moscow:
The Kremlin mentioned Friday that the Worldwide Felony Court docket’s resolution to challenge an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin was legally “void” since Moscow doesn’t recognise the Hague-based court docket’s jurisdiction.
Prime Russian officers and propagandists seethed with anger, whereas members of the opposition hailed the transfer.
“Russia, identical to quite a lot of completely different nations, doesn’t recognise the jurisdiction of this court docket and so from a authorized viewpoint, the choices of this court docket are void,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters.
Russia shouldn’t be a member of the ICC.
Russian international ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mentioned the choices of the ICC “don’t have any that means” for Russia.
“Russia shouldn’t be a celebration to the Rome Statute of the Worldwide Felony Court docket and bears no obligations underneath it,” she mentioned on Telegram.
“Russia doesn’t cooperate with this physique and potential ‘recipes’ for arrest coming from the worldwide court docket shall be legally void so far as we’re involved,” Zakharova mentioned, with out referring to Putin by identify.
Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev additionally took to Twitter, likening the warrant to rest room paper.
The ICC introduced earlier Friday it had issued an arrest warrant towards Putin for the “illegal deportation” of Ukrainian kids.
The court docket had additionally issued a warrant towards Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for youngsters’s rights, on related expenses.
“There have been sanctions towards me from all nations, even Japan, and now an arrest warrant…,” Lvova-Belova was quoted as saying by state information company RIA Novosti.
“However we’ll proceed our work.”
– ‘Lock him up’ –
The top of the Investigative Committee, which probes main crimes, ordered a probe into the ICC warrants towards “Russian residents”.
“Russia’s Investigative Committee will determine particular people from among the many ICC judges who made the clearly unlawful choices,” investigators mentioned in an announcement.
Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russian state broadcaster RT, implied that Moscow may reply militarily to any makes an attempt to arrest the Russian president.
“I want to see the nation that arrests Putin by the choice of the Hague. Some eight minutes after. Or nevertheless lengthy the flight time shall be to its capital,” Simonyan mentioned on social media.
Members of the Russian opposition praised the transfer.
“Congratulations to Vladimir Vladimirovich on his arrest in absentia! That is simply step one,” Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent a decade behind bars, mentioned on social media.
“Lock him up!” tweeted activist Vladimir Milov, an ally of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by Timesof24 workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
