Russia opens criminal investigation against ICC after arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

Russia on Monday, March 20, opened a criminal investigation into the International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan after the case based in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.

The Investigative Committee said, "The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Ahmad Khan, and several ICC judges." This comes three days after the ICC accused Putin and his children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine to Russia.

The committee said that there were no grounds for criminal liability on Putin’s part, and heads of state enjoyed absolute immunity under a 1973 United Nations convention. “The criminal prosecution is obviously illegal, since there are no grounds for criminal liability,” the Russian statement said.

Karim Khan is being investigated on the grounds of criminal prosecution of a person known to be innocent and preparation of an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection,” the statement from the Investigative Committee said.

ICC Issues Warrant Against Putin

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for committing war crimes in Ukraine, including his alleged involvement in the abduction of children from the neighboring war-ravaged country. However, Moscow has dismissed the move as absurd and not legally binding.

The court said in a statement that Putin "is allegedly responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of the population (children) and unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation." Also, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, was charged with similar allegations.