President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed South Africa’s ruling party the ANC would withdraw the country from the International Criminal Court ahead of a planned visit by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who was indicted last month for war crimes in Ukraine.
South Africa plans to hold a summit with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and other BRICS nations in August.
As an ICC member, the country would be obliged to detain President Putin on arrival. The ruling African National Congress decided that “it is prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC largely because of the manner in which the ICC has been seen to be dealing with these types of problems,” Ramaphosa said on Tuesday.
The ANC Party’s decision at a weekend meeting of its national executive committee came after the ICC issued an arrest warrant on 17th March 2023 against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
