PRETORIA, South Africa: South Africa is likely to change its law so that it has the power to decide whether or not to arrest a leader wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), deputy minister, Obed Bapela’s has told the BBC.
Bapela’s remarks come amid intense speculation over whether South Africa stands by its invitation to Russia’s President Putin to visit in August. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the Ukraine war.
South Africa had earlier invited Russia’s president to attend a summit of Brics leaders. Moscow has not said whether president Putin plans to attend the summit.
Meanwhile, Pretoria has also granted diplomatic immunity to Russian officials attending the summit, something its foreign affairs department described as standard procedure. Brics is intended to strengthen ties between the nations that make it up – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
“In June we’ll be submitting the law in parliament,” Obed Bapela, a deputy minister in the South African presidency, told the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme.
Through the law, South Africa “will give itself exemptions of who to arrest and who not to arrest,” Mr Bapela said.
Under its laws in vogue, South Africa, being a member of the ICC, is obliged to arrest Mr Putin if he arrives on its shores. But South Africa has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, insisting it wants to remain neutral.
The ICC issued the warrant for Mr Putin in March, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes – though Moscow has rejected the same. South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has launched a court application to compel the authorities to arrest Putin should he arrive in August. Bapela said that South Africa was also writing to the ICC about a waiver refering to article 98 of the Rome Statue, the treaty which established the court in 2002.
The deputy minister also lashed out at the ICC for its “double standards”, saying the late Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president, would have been disappointed by the war crimes court.
“We never thought that the ICC that we have today will be what it is. They never indicted Tony Blair, they never indicted [George W] Bush for their killings of Iraq people,” he said, referring to the former United Kingdom and United States leaders and their invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Mandela would have said [that] the inequality, the inconsistency by the ICC, is a problem.”
The former Chilean dictator was arrested in London at the request of a Spanish judge seeking to put him on trial for HR abuses during his 17-year rule, but the United Kingdom government freed him after 16 months on the advice of medical experts who said he was unfit to stand trial. He died back home in 2006, according to the BBC.
