The Russian investigative commission has opened a criminal investigation against the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Ahmad Khan, as well as against judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aytala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez. Earlier, they issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova.
According to the Investigative Committee’s position, the criminal charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova “are manifestly illegal, as there are no grounds for criminal liability.”
Karim Ahmad Khan, according to a press release from the Russian department, prosecuted a knowingly innocent person and unlawfully charged a person with committing a serious or particularly serious crime. The commission of inquiry accused the judges of “knowingly unlawful detention”.
It is alleged that the court was “preparing to attack a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection, with the aim of complicating international relations”.
The UK said heads of state enjoyed “absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign states”. (The International Criminal Court does not recognize head of state immunity when it comes to investigating and prosecuting war crimes.)
The International Criminal Court suspects Putin and Lvova-Belova of having committed war crimes – forced deportations and displacement of people, especially children, from occupied territories of Ukraine. International law can consider this as genocide. The ICC notes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin is personally responsible for the alleged crimes.
Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and does not participate in its work. Moscow has not been a party to the Rome Statute governing the court’s actions since 2016.
