On Friday, Russia’s Interior Ministry issued a search and arrest warrant for Karim Ahmad Khan, the British lawyer currently serving as chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Khan filed a request for his arrest against Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 17, alleging responsibility for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
According to Russian Ministry records, Khan is wanted under an unspecified article of Russia’s Criminal Code. This action comes two months after Russia’s Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case against Khan and judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala, and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez, who issued the arrest warrant for Putin.
In response to the order of the ICC, located in The Hague, Russia cited the alleged deportation of Ukrainian minors to its territory as a war crime. The court found that there are sufficient grounds to believe that Putin is directly responsible. In addition to Putin, the ICC ordered the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that the ICC decisions have no significance for Russia, not even from a legal point of view. She added that possible arrest warrants issued by the ICC would be legally invalid for her country.
During a Security Council meeting, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, stated that the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against Putin proves that the court is on its way to self-destruction and that it is a puppet in the hands of the collective West, always ready to exercise “pseudo-justice” by proxy.