Brazilian President Lula backtracks on Putin’s arrest possibility

2023-09-11 11:32:13

His version has changed. Last week, Brazilian President Lula, who is preparing to host the G20 in November 2024, said that Vladimir Putin would receive an invitation and “that there is no reason for him to be arrested”. As a reminder, the Russian head of state is subject to an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a body of which Brazil is a member.

But the day after the closing of the G20 held in New Delhi in India, the Brazilian head of state changed his mind. “I don’t know if Brazilian justice will arrest him. It is up to justice to decide, not the government,” he said, while hoping that during the G20 in Brazil, the war in Ukraine will be over.

Is Brazil questioning its membership in the ICC?

After this statement, the Brazilian leader also appeared to question Brazil’s membership in the ICC, arguing that “emerging countries often sign things that are harmful to them.” “I want to know why we are members (of the ICC) and not the United States, or Russia, or India, or China,” Lula stressed.

“I am not saying that I am going to leave the Court, I just want to know why Brazil is a signatory” to the ICC statute, he added. Unlike India, Brazil is a party to the 1998 Rome Statute, the international treaty that led to the creation of the ICC in 2002, and would therefore theoretically have to arrest the Russian president if he entered its territory.