Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be arrested in Brazil if he attends the Group of 20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro next year.
Lula, speaking to the Firstpost news show at the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Delhi on Saturday, said Putin would be invited to next year’s event.
He added that he himself planned to attend a BRICS bloc of developing nations meeting due in Russia before the Rio meeting.
“I believe that Putin can go easily to Brazil,” Lula said. “What I can say to you is that if I’m president of Brazil, and he comes to Brazil, there’s no way he will be arrested.”
The statement comes after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
I don’t think any sane country would arrest Putin. Deny him entry sure. But not arrest him. Declaring war on Russia, even if they are a paper tiger today, is not going to be in anybody’s best interest
Exceptions for Ukraine and Poland. They would absolutely arrest Putin on sight.
Why should any NATO country (beside maybe Turkey) not immediately arrest him?
World war 3 is going to be a total downer for everyone, most countries will want to avoid it, or at least try not to be the one to start it.
Not to mention the president of a country travels as a diplomat. Arresting diplomats is something that’s frowned upon internationally.
Arresting the president of a country, or kidnapping the president of a country, is a pretty clear declaration of war.
Let’s say by some miracle war doesn’t immediately break out, well the country you’ve just pissed off has a bunch of hostages immediately available, all of your diplomats and citizens in their borders. As much as we want to talk about rule of law, at the international level between countries it’s all about capabilities.
It is a false narrative that doing anything against russian aggression automatically means WW3.
And this false narrative is deliberately spread by pro russian channels so that Russia gets challenged as little as possible.
Putin is a war criminal and should be arrested, if Russia then chooses to go to war (which I doubt) they will see how it serves them.
You mean a false narrative that has been US policy since 1940? This isn’t “just doing something”, this is a direct act of war. Removing a head of state is quite literally referred to as a decapitation strike.
NATO is not at war with Russia.
And what does that have to do with arresting a war criminal?
Arresting the leader of a sovereign nation amounts at least to a diplomatic crisis, and at worst to a declaration of war.
And before George Bush is brought to trial I don’t think the West has much credibility in dealing with war criminals.
We’d arrest him but he’d have to set foot in Germany, or at least Europe, first. The US are hardly going to extradite him, aren’t they.
No country would ever arrest Bush. The US has far too much invested in insuring qualified immunity for former heads of state. Imagine if every president knew that any country could either arrest or coerce extradition based solely on decisions made in office, nobody would run for office. There is an implicit guarantee that current presidents will retailate against states that imprison US citizens who act in an official capacity.
Additionally there is no arrest warrant for Bush in Germany, or any country in Europe.
Germany claims universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity as well as wars of aggression. The US can try as much as it wants to tell Germany “Bush is going to come please don’t arrest him”, the answer will be “Have a look at our laws it’s all laid out in very clear terms”. And, no, he’s not going to be recognised as a US diplomat, and therefore won’t be granted immunity.
And of course there’s no arrest warrant he’s not in the country and if we’d send out an Interpol notice the US would go ballistic. Hence the simple understanding that he’s not going to come over for a visit.
States generally decide who to extradite on their own terms. That is nothing new or unusual and Germany certainly isn’t in a position to complain the US won’t extradite a citizen given that we don’t extradite citizens as a matter of principle (unless it’s within the EU and certain conditions are met), but instead trial them over here.
Pretty sure there is a good deal of evidence that Germany caves into US pressure. In fact you admit it yourself, ”US would go ballistic” you claim.
If the US going ballistic over a public Interpol red card is sufficient to prevent Germany from issuing one, where would the sudden courage come from to actually arrest Bush?
“The answer will be ‘Have a look at our laws…’”
No the answer will be "Whatever you say President Biden”. Germany is an incredibly weak country, UK and France are much more geopolitically powerful than Germany and they are effectively US satellites.
It’s simply hilarious how you are trying to puff up Germany as somehow this great power that can afford to alienate the US.
No European country would arrest Putin, let alone a NATO country, and especially not Germany lol. They wouldn’t even allow him into the country in the first place.
I think they were talking about Bush. While I think Cheney deserves it more, was there ever an arrest warrant for either of them?
I don’t think so, which is also one of the reasons anyone outside the western hemisphere can safely dismiss anything the ICC says. But also the US made it pretty clear it would not accept any international court ruling, and AFIK there even was a slight threat of violence when it was being discussed a decade ago.
How do you figure?