Hungary refused to arrest Putin if he enters the country

Hungary will not arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he enters the country. The government of Viktor Orban sees no legal grounds.

This was stated by the head of the Office of the Prime Minister of Hungary Gergely Gulyas, Reuters reports.

Hungary has signed and ratified the Rome Statute created by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant accusing Putin of the war crime of illegally deporting children from Ukraine. The ICC said in a statement that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Putin was individually criminally responsible.

Asked if Putin would be arrested if he came to Hungary, Gulyas said in a briefing that the Rome Statute was not built into the Hungarian legal system.

"We can refer to the Hungarian law and based on that we cannot arrest the Russian President ... as the ICC's statute has not been promulgated in Hungary," Gulyas said.

He also said the Hungarian government "has not formed a position" on the arrest warrant issued for Putin.

"These decisions are not the most fortunate as they take things towards further escalation and not towards peace, this is my personal subjective opinion," Gulyas added.

Putin is only the third serving president to whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant. The warrant means he can be arrested and sent to The Hague if he goes to any of the ICC member states.

As a reminder, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The decision was made in the case on the deportation of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories.

The Hungarian government then vetoed an EU statement on the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Author – Anastasiya Glotova, 23/03/2022