South Africa’s gov’t sued by opposition seeking to prevent Putin’s BRICS visit

South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said that it had taken a legal action to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be arrested if he finally decided to attend a BRICS summit in the country in August.

The arrest warrant to arrest Putin, which was issued by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), has launched a debate in South Africa which now faces a diplomatic dilemma ahead of the BRICS summit. The main opposition party is asking the courts for “an order” stipulating that if the Russian president arrives in South Africa to take part in the BRICS summit, the government must arrest him, as required by the ICC.

The ICC issued the warrant against Vladimir Putin in March for the war crime of unlawfully “deporting” Ukrainian children as part of Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine. As South Africa is a member of the ICC, it is theoretically supposed to arrest the Russian president on his arrival in the country. Putin is due to visit Cape Town for a Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) bloc meeting in August.

But Pretoria, which maintains close diplomatic relations with Moscow and insists on its “neutrality” in the conflict in Ukraine, has not yet indicated whether it will eventually decide to arrest the Russian leaders. The DA’s judicial application is “pre-emptive” and designed to ensure that Pretoria “respects its obligations” and hands Putin over to the ICC if he comes to South Africa. No “judicial ambiguity” should persist, the DA also said in a statement.

Russia would be “duly represented” at the BRICS summit, Kremlin spokesman Boris Peskov said on Tuesday May 30, without specifying whether the Russian president planned to attend.

The DA’s legal action comes as the government recently granted diplomatic immunity to officials attending a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers, followed by a summit of heads of state in August.