The main opposition party in South Africa said on Tuesday (May 30th) that it had taken legal action to ensure that Vladimir Putin would be arrested if he set foot in the country, where he is expected in August for a summit.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is asking the courts for "an order" stipulating that if Vladimir Putin arrives in South Africa to participate in the BRICS summit (group of countries bringing together South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia), the government will have to arrest him, as required by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Close relations with Moscow
The ICC, based in The Hague, issued an arrest warrant in March for Vladimir Putin for the war crime of "deportation" of Ukrainian children as part of Moscow's offensive against Ukraine. As South Africa is a member of the ICC, it is theoretically supposed to arrest the Russian president upon his arrival in the country. But Pretoria, which has close diplomatic relations with Moscow and insists on its "neutrality" in the conflict in Ukraine, has not yet indicated whether it will do so.
The DA explains that it has launched a "preventive" judicial request to ensure that the government "respects its obligations" and surrenders Vladimir Putin to the ICC in the event of his visit to South Africa. No "judicial ambiguity" should persist, its statement said. Kremlin spokesman Boris Peskov said only on Tuesday that Russia would be "duly represented" at the BRICS summit, without specifying whether Vladimir Putin planned to go there. Moscow "assumes of course" that its BRICS partners "will not be guided" by "illegitimate decisions," namely the ICC arrest warrant, he added.
" READ ALSO Yves Thréard: "Africa, battlefield between the West and the Global South"
The DA's lawsuit comes as the government granted diplomatic immunity to officials attending a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers this week and then the summit of heads of state in August. Some read the move as a preparatory step to provide legal cover for Putin's visit, but Pretoria says it is standard procedure for holding international conferences. "These immunities do not cancel an arrest warrant issued by an international tribunal against any participant in the conference," the Foreign Ministry defended itself on Tuesday morning. South Africa has been criticized since the beginning of the war in Ukraine for its proximity to Moscow. In April, Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, said that the ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin put South Africa "obstacles in the wheels".