Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be arrested in Brazil if he attends the Group of 20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro next year.
Lula, speaking to the Firstpost news show at the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Delhi on Saturday, said Putin would be invited to next year’s event.
He added that he himself planned to attend a BRICS bloc of developing nations meeting due in Russia before the Rio meeting.
“I believe that Putin can go easily to Brazil,” Lula said. “What I can say to you is that if I’m president of Brazil, and he comes to Brazil, there’s no way he will be arrested.”
The statement comes after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
I think they were talking about Bush. While I think Cheney deserves it more, was there ever an arrest warrant for either of them?
I don’t think so, which is also one of the reasons anyone outside the western hemisphere can safely dismiss anything the ICC says. But also the US made it pretty clear it would not accept any international court ruling, and AFIK there even was a slight threat of violence when it was being discussed a decade ago.