Brazil's Lula backtracks, says Brazilian courts will decide whether to arrest Putin if he attends 2024 G20 meeting in Rio
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Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has backtracked on a promise that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would not face arrest if he attends the 2024 meeting of the G20 group of nations in Rio de Janeiro, now saying that it is the Brazilian courts that will decide on the matter.
The Brazilian president, commonly known simply as Lula, sparked controversy when he said on Sept. 10 in an interview with Indian news website Firstpost that Putin would be able to visit Brazil despite there being an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest.
The Russian dictator is a suspect in a case of mass child abduction from Ukraine to Russia — a case that falls under one of the Genocide Convention’s definitions of genocide.
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"What I can tell you is that, if I’m Brazil’s president, and if he comes to Brazil, there’s no reason he’ll be arrested,” Lula had told Firstpost during the G20 meeting in Delhi, India.
A day later Lula had backtracked, however, saying it was a matter for the Brazilian courts to decide.
"If Putin decides to attend (the G20 summit), (the matter of his arrest) should be decided by the judiciary, not my government," the Brazilian leader told journalists, U.S. television news channel CNN reported.
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Lula’s initial statement provoked swift condemnation from Ukraine. Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the President’s Office, reacted with searing sarcasm on the social medium formerly known as Twitter on Sept. 10.
“After all, why ratify the Rome Statute if you're not going to enforce it?” Podolyak wrote.
“Why build a country's reputation only to have it shattered for the sake of... inviting Putin in 2024, who regularly claims to be deliberately committing crimes against Ukrainians? Why have rules at all if you're going to break them for the sake of scandalous populism?”
“Brazilian President Lula as the author of the new ‘neo/realpolitik’ — break everything you can. Or ‘long live chaos for the sake of Russian murderers!’”
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Putin did not attend the G20 summit in Delhi. During a telephone conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Putin said that Russia would instead be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Putin now faces arrest in 123 countries that have ratified the Rome Statute — the founding document of the ICC. The statute makes it mandatory for signatories to execute ICC arrest warrants if suspects are located on their territories.
Brazil is a signatory of the Rome Statute.
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