Ukraine war
Chief prosecutor: Arrest warrant against Putin is valid for life
The Hague-based court in the Netherlands has issued an arrest warrant against Putin for war crimes in Ukraine. photo
© Mikhail Metzel/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP/dpa
“There is no statute of limitations for war crimes,” says chief prosecutor Karim Khan. The arrest warrant will hang on Putin for the rest of his life.
According to chief prosecutor Karim Khan, the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Russian President Vladimir Putin will remain valid even after the end of the Russian war against Ukraine. “There is no statute of limitations for war crimes,” Khan told BBC Radio 4.
That was one of the principles of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal after the Second World War. “Individuals – wherever they are in the world – need to recognize that there is law and that with authority comes responsibility,” said the Brit.
The arrest warrants would attach Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, to life for the rest of their lives, Khan stressed. “Unless they face the independent judges of the court, and the judges decide on the merits to dismiss a case – but otherwise: absolutely, yes,” he said when asked.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Lvowa-Belowa on Friday at Khan’s request for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. They are allegedly responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia. Above all, the arrest warrants have a symbolic meaning, and a trial currently seems out of the question.
British lawyer Geoffey Nice, chief prosecutor of former Serbian head of state Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, said the arrest warrant had labeled Putin as a wanted criminal. “The tag will stick for life unless he is tried and acquitted or, almost inconceivable, the International Criminal Court withdraws the warrant,” Nice told Sky News. The arrest warrant is a “very, very important and very welcome step”.