Russia defies Vladimir Putin arrest warrant by opening its own case against ICC
Russia's top investigative body has said it had opened a criminal case against the International Criminal Court prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges, Reuters reports.
The move was a symbolic gesture of defiance, three days after the ICC accused Mr Putin and his children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. The state Investigative Committee said there were no grounds for criminal liability on Mr Putin's part, and heads of state enjoyed absolute immunity under a 1973 UN convention. The ICC prosecutor's actions showed signs of being crimes under Russian law, the committee said, including knowingly accusing an innocent person of a crime. The prosecutor and judges were also suspected of "preparing an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection, in order to complicate international relations". The Kremlin has called the issuing of the warrant outrageous but legally void, as Russia is not a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC.
