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.

      • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Arresting the leader of a sovereign nation amounts at least to a diplomatic crisis, and at worst to a declaration of war.

        And before George Bush is brought to trial I don’t think the West has much credibility in dealing with war criminals.

        • barsoap
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          1 year ago

          We’d arrest him but he’d have to set foot in Germany, or at least Europe, first. The US are hardly going to extradite him, aren’t they.

          • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            No European country would arrest Putin, let alone a NATO country, and especially not Germany lol. They wouldn’t even allow him into the country in the first place.

            • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 year ago

              I think they were talking about Bush. While I think Cheney deserves it more, was there ever an arrest warrant for either of them?

              • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                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.

          • jasory@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            No country would ever arrest Bush. The US has far too much invested in insuring qualified immunity for former heads of state. Imagine if every president knew that any country could either arrest or coerce extradition based solely on decisions made in office, nobody would run for office. There is an implicit guarantee that current presidents will retailate against states that imprison US citizens who act in an official capacity.

            Additionally there is no arrest warrant for Bush in Germany, or any country in Europe.

            • barsoap
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              1 year ago

              Germany claims universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity as well as wars of aggression. The US can try as much as it wants to tell Germany “Bush is going to come please don’t arrest him”, the answer will be “Have a look at our laws it’s all laid out in very clear terms”. And, no, he’s not going to be recognised as a US diplomat, and therefore won’t be granted immunity.

              And of course there’s no arrest warrant he’s not in the country and if we’d send out an Interpol notice the US would go ballistic. Hence the simple understanding that he’s not going to come over for a visit.

              coerce extradition

              States generally decide who to extradite on their own terms. That is nothing new or unusual and Germany certainly isn’t in a position to complain the US won’t extradite a citizen given that we don’t extradite citizens as a matter of principle (unless it’s within the EU and certain conditions are met), but instead trial them over here.

              • jasory@programming.dev
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                1 year ago

                Pretty sure there is a good deal of evidence that Germany caves into US pressure. In fact you admit it yourself, ”US would go ballistic” you claim.

                If the US going ballistic over a public Interpol red card is sufficient to prevent Germany from issuing one, where would the sudden courage come from to actually arrest Bush?

                “The answer will be ‘Have a look at our laws…’”

                No the answer will be "Whatever you say President Biden”. Germany is an incredibly weak country, UK and France are much more geopolitically powerful than Germany and they are effectively US satellites.

                It’s simply hilarious how you are trying to puff up Germany as somehow this great power that can afford to alienate the US.

                • barsoap
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                  1 year ago

                  If the US going ballistic over a public Interpol red card is sufficient to prevent Germany from issuing one, where would the sudden courage come from to actually arrest Bush?

                  There’s no need to irritate the US when the chances of the US extraditing are zero anyway. And as to arresting him if he sets on German soil: That’s not a matter of courage but law. You know, rule of law and everything you might’ve heard of it.

                  It’s simply hilarious how you are trying to puff up Germany as somehow this great power that can afford to alienate the US.

                  We’re doing that fucking constantly. Get your Seppo exceptionalism in check you can’t even cast tank barrels without our help much less produce microchips.

                  • jasory@programming.dev
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                    1 year ago

                    ”Get your Seppo exceptionalism in check"

                    Pretty sure I’m not the one who is claiming that my country can unilaterally take an action against a much stronger state that has only ever happened to weaker states and through international coalitions. What makes you think that Germany is so special and heroic that it alone, out of every state in the world, will arrest George Bush?

                    “You can’t even cast tank barrels without our help”- Who needs tanks when you have air power? Also the US can easily manufacture tank barrels, it has an extremely advanced metallurgy industry, it also produces 12 percent of the total microchips in the world.

                    Don’t try to compare Germany to a state 4 times larger than it, you’re going to be sad and disappointed.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He’s only a war criminal if convicted in a court of law.

        No, I’m not defending Putin in the slightest bit, I’m simply stating that just because people across the globe have labelled him as a war criminal, doesn’t automatically make that official.

        • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          And that’s why the ICC issued a warrant and any sane country should execute the warrant. We just want to talk to him…

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          Eh… the international legal system is not very functional so I’m not sure I agree with this. By that definition Hitler was not a war criminal either because he died before going to trial.

        • Andy@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          Cy Borgman: “I could call up my old pal Hank Kissinger! I’m sure he has a few war crimes he never got around to!”

          Harley Quinn: “Mm… I know we’re criminals, but are we really WAR criminals?”

          From the excellent Harley Quinn cartoon

          • ours@lemmy.film
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            1 year ago

            Excellent cartoon. There’s also “Dr. Henry Killinger” from Venture Bros which was hilariously devious.