23 March 2023, Thursday, 16:46 159

Hungary Would Not Arrest Putin If He Enters Country

Редактор: Tetiana Herasimova

Hungary, which signed and ratified the Rome Statute, does not intend to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin, accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes, if suddenly the Russian dictator comes to the country.

Reuters reports this with reference to Gergely Gulyas, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff.

Orban's chief of staff said there would be no legal basis for the arrest as the Rome Statute is not embedded in the Hungarian legal system.

"We can refer to the Hungarian law and based on that we cannot arrest the Russian President ... as the ICC's statute has not been promulgated in Hungary," Gulyas said.

He added that the government has not formed positions on Putin's arrest warrant.

"These decisions are not the most fortunate as they take things towards further escalation and not towards peace, this is my personal subjective opinion," Gulyas stated.

Reuters recalls that Putin is the third serving president to have been issued an arrest warrant by the ICC.

It is unlikely that in the near future the Russian president will be in the dock, but the warrant means that Putin can be arrested and sent to The Hague if he travels to any ICC member states.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on March 17, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a warrant for the arrest of Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova.

They are suspected of committing the war crime of illegally deporting children from the occupied territory of Ukraine to Russia at least since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.