Hungary has confirmed its decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) amid the visit to the country of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant.
The Chief of Staff of the Hungarian Prime Minister Gergely Gulyás has announced this, Telex reports.
Thus, Gergely stated that the termination procedure would be initiated on Thursday in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework.
He added that the International Criminal Court "was an honorable initiative", but, according to him, the Hungarian government believes that the ICC has turned into a political body, in particular, given the accusations of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Minister stressed that the government considers this unacceptable and therefore decided not to participate in the work of the ICC.
The government announced the decision before Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was due to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was invited to Hungary by Viktor Orbán in November 2024, after the ICC issued an international arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister on charges of deliberately going on a hunger strike in the Gaza Strip.
The Hungarian government had already said at the time that it would ignore the Hague body's decision, which it called absurd and shameful.
The decision to denounce the International Criminal Court agreement has already been published in the Hungarian official gazette.
"The government agrees that Hungary will denounce the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court, adopted in New York on September 10, 2002," the resolution signed by the Prime Minister reads.
Orbán asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to make the necessary legal declarations for the denunciation.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In addition, in March 2023, the International Criminal Court announced a decision to issue an arrest warrant for russian president vladimir putin and russia's Commissioner for Children Maria Lvova-Belova, who are suspected of committing the war crime of illegally deporting children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to russia at least since the beginning of the russian federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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