JOHANNESBURG - A South African government has said Russian President Vladimir Putin will be arrested if he attends the upcoming BRICS summit slated for August 2023.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is under pressure to execute the arrest warrant placed on Putin for war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March.
“We have no option not to arrest Putin. If he comes here, we will have to arrest him,” a South African government official said, according to the Heritage Times.
The African power, instead, has urged the Russian leader who has been declared wanted by the ICC to join the bloc meeting via Zoom. As a member of the ICC, South Africa is under obligation to hand over Putin to investigators.
Last week, Ramaphosa appointed a special government committee headed by the country’s vice president to study Vladimir Putin’s international arrest warrant, the Heritage Times reported. The committee will not be able to find “any options that would allow Putin to come. The only option we have is for [Putin] to participate in the summit via Teams or Zoom from Moscow.”
