South Africa has claimed it cannot arrest Vladimir Putin at a planned Brics summit in Johannesburg next month because Russia has threatened to “declare war” if the International Criminal Court warrant against its leader is enforced.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said in court papers publicly released on Tuesday that “Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war” as he revealed that Pretoria has notified the ICC that it might not be able to detain Putin.
Putin’s acceptance of a South African invitation to appear alongside Chinese, Indian, Brazilian and other leaders of the so-called Brics nations at the summit has yet to be confirmed. Ramaphosa’s government is increasingly anxious to dissuade him from coming given a looming clash with Pretoria’s legal obligations.
“South Africa has obvious problems with executing a request to arrest and surrender President Putin . . . it would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia,” Ramaphosa said.
As a member of the ICC, South Africa would risk breaking its own and international law if it sought to avoid arresting Putin, after the court indicted him on war crimes charges over child abductions in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Rome Statute treaty underpinning the ICC does allow states to consult the court if they encounter problems executing its warrants, the avenue South Africa is now using. Ramaphosa declined to provide details of these consultations in the court papers.
Pretoria previously used this route after it failed to honour an ICC request to arrest Omar al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, on a South African visit in 2015. South Africa’s arguments at the time were rebuffed by the court.
The South African leader will again seek to convince Putin to stay away during a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg this month, Paul Mashatile, deputy president, has said.
The court papers were revealed in a case brought by South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance to force Ramaphosa’s government to execute the ICC warrant if Putin attends the gathering. Ramaphosa’s office said it never opposed the release of the papers.
The DA said to claim a threat of war from Russia was a “flimsy” and “strawman” argument “when the constitutional principle and both domestic and international law make the merits of this case crystal clear”.
Analysts have questioned whether Putin would want to leave Russia on a long journey to South Africa in the wake of the Wagner mutiny and with the war in Ukraine raging.
Ramaphosa has said that he will announce when a decision is made about Putin’s attendance at the summit.