Hungary wouldn’t arrest Putin if he entered the country, official says
Mike Brest
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Hungarian officials will not arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he enters the country despite the International Criminal Court’s warrant for his arrest, a top official said on Thursday.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said that even though the country is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC, and ratified it in 2001, such an arrest would not have any basis in Hungarian law.
PUTIN’S ARREST ABROAD WOULD AMOUNT TO ‘DECLARATION OF WAR,’ RUSSIAN OFFICIAL SAYS
“We can refer to the Hungarian law and based on that we cannot arrest the Russian President … as the ICC’s statute has not been promulgated in Hungary,” Gulyas said, adding that the government “had not formed a stance” on the arrest warrant, according to Reuters. “These decisions are not the most fortunate as they take things towards further escalation and not towards peace, this is my personal subjective opinion.”
The ICC announced the arrest warrant for Putin last week, accusing him of being responsible for the thousands of children that have been forcibly deported to Russia where they’ve undergone political reeducation training. The Kremlin quickly denounced the warrant and dismissed it because it is not a part of the ICC.
“The human impact of these crimes was also made clear during my most recent visit to Ukraine. While there, I visited one of the care homes from which children were allegedly taken, close to the current frontlines of the conflict,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who has visited Ukraine four times since the war began, said following the release of the warrant. “The accounts of those who had cared for these children, and their fears as to what had become of them, underlined the urgent need for action. We must ensure that those responsible for alleged crimes are held accountable and that children are returned to their families and communities. As I stated at the time, we cannot allow children to be treated as if they are the spoils of war.”
A Russian official said Putin’s arrest overseas, which the Biden administration supports, would be tantamount to a “declaration of war.”
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“Just imagine — clearly that such a situation is never going to happen but still — let’s imagine that it has happened. The incumbent head of a nuclear country arrives in, say, Germany and is arrested. What does it mean? A declaration of war against Russia. In such a case, all our weapons will target the Bundestag, the [German] chancellor’s office and so on,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, who held the title of Russian presidency under Putin from 2008 to 2012, said Thursday, according to state news agency Tass.
While it’s unlikely Putin will ever face trial, the warrant means he could be arrested by any ICC member state should he travel there.