President Lula affirms that President Putin will not be arrested when attending the G20 Summit in Brazil.
(Baonghean.vn) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's statement on September 10 affirmed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be arrested in Brazil if he attends the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next year.
In an interview with the Firstpost news program on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, Mr. Lula said that Mr. Putin will be invited to the event taking place next year, adding that he himself had planned to attend a BRICS developing countries conference scheduled to take place in Russia before the Rio summit.
“I believe that Mr. Putin can easily come to Brazil. What I can tell you is that if I were the president of Brazil and he came to Brazil, there is no way he would be arrested.”
In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin, accusing the Russian leader of committing “war crimes by deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine”, but Russia has denied this.
The Russian president has repeatedly skipped international meetings, and was also absent from the recent G20 summit in New Delhi. Instead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was sent to attend.
According to Reuters, Brazil is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the document that led to the establishment of the ICC. Lula's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
