The man behind Putin’s arrest warrant

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Since his election as Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague (NL), he has remained in the background. Now Karim Asad Ahmad Khan is in the spotlight. The 52-year-old human rights lawyer is the mastermind behind the arrest warrant against 70-year-old Vladimir Putin that was issued on Friday.

He asked the court to release President Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Deputy Maria Alexeyevna Lvowa-Belowa (38) from arrest. The crime: the alleged kidnapping of Ukrainian children to give them up for adoption or to “Russify” them in institutions. The court decided there was sufficient evidence to justify them and issued arrest warrants. “We will not hesitate to seek further arrest warrants if the evidence warrants it,” Khan wrote in his statement.

Elected chief prosecutor was controversial

The Brit doesn’t seem like a bad choice when he’s battling a powerful autocrat. He is known as a workhorse that spares no expense. He is considered smart and strategically adept. The son of a British nurse and a dermatologist with Pakistani roots, he was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and studied at the prestigious King’s College in London and Oxford. He then began a successful career as a human rights lawyer, partly as a lawyer, which made his election as Chief Prosecutor of the ICC not uncontroversial.

For example, he defended the president of Kenya, William Ruto (56), whose case was dropped in 2016. Ruto was charged in 2011 with incitement to murder, displacement and persecution in connection with the riots in Kenya in 2007/2008. The case was accompanied by allegations of witness tampering. Various human rights organizations in Africa had therefore spoken out against Khan’s election.

Will Putin stand trial soon?

Kahn took his position at a difficult time. The court in The Hague was under political pressure from various sides. Russia wanted to prevent investigations in Georgia and Crimea, while China firmly opposes investigations into the situation of the Uyghurs. Even the US had withdrawn its signature from the Rome Statute, on which the ICC is based, and even imposed sanctions on Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda (62), to prevent investigations into possible crimes in Afghanistan.

Tensions, at least with the United States, seem to be easing. US President Joe Biden (80) welcomed the issuing of the arrest warrant. In Russia it is different: the court in Russia has nothing to say, you are not a member, so the arrest warrant is “null and void”, according to the Kremlin.

Putin is unlikely to stand trial in the near future. The decision is primarily symbolic. Putin’s freedom of movement is further restricted. In all 123 Member States he should now be arrested during a visit. Currently unlikely – but war crimes are never statute-barred.

Source: Blick