THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court said Friday that it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
Although world leaders have been indicted before, it was the first time the global court has issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
It also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow — and welcomed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough. Its practical implications, however, could well be limited as the chances of either facing trial at the ICC are extremely unlikely.
But the moral condemnation will likely stain Putin for the rest of his life — and in the more immediate future whenever he seeks to attend an international summit in a nation that could be bound to arrest him.
“So Putin might go to China, Syria, Iran, his ... few allies, but he just won’t travel to the rest of the world and won’t travel to ICC member states who he believes would actually ... arrest him,” said Adil Ahmad Haque, an expert in international law and armed conflict at Rutgers University.
Others agreed. “Vladimir Putin will forever be marked as a pariah globally. He has lost all his political credibility around the world. Any world leader who stands by him will be shamed as well,” David Crane, a former international prosecutor, told The Associated Press.
The court’s president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC’s judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to do so.
“The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation,” he said.
The court can impose a maximum sentence of life imprisonment “when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person,” according to its founding treaty known as the Rome Statute.
Still, the chances of Putin facing trial remain extremely unlikely, as Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction — a position it vehemently reaffirmed on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that Russia doesn’t recognize the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void.” He added that Russia considers the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable.”
Peskov refused to comment when asked if Putin would avoid making trips to countries where he could be arrested on the ICC’s warrant.
Ukraine’s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, has said that based on data from the country’s National Information Bureau, 16,226 children were deported. Ukraine has managed to bring back 308 children.
Lvova-Belova, who was also implicated in the warrant, reacted with dripping sarcasm. “It is great that the international community has appreciated the work to help the children of our country, that we do not leave them in war zones, that we take them out, we create good conditions for them, that we surround them with loving, caring people,” she said.
Ukrainian officials were jubilant at the move.
In his nightly address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a “historic decision, from which historic responsibility will begin.”
“The world changed,” said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the “wheels of justice are turning,” and added that “international criminals will be held accountable for stealing children and other international crimes.”
Olga Lopatkina, a Ukrainian mother who struggled for months to reclaim her foster children who were deported to an institution run by Russian loyalists, welcomed the news of the arrest warrant. “Good news!” she said in an exchange of messages with the AP. “Everyone must be punished for their crimes.”
While Ukraine is also not a member of the global court, it has granted it jurisdiction over its territory and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.
Besides Russia and Ukraine, the United States and China are not members of the 123-member ICC.
The ICC said its pre-trial chamber found “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others” and for failing to “exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”
After his most recent visit earlier this month, ICC prosecutor Khan said he went to a care home for children 2 kilometers (just over a mile) from front lines in southern Ukraine.
“The drawings pinned on the wall ... spoke to a context of love and support that was once there,” he said in a statement. “But this home was empty, a result of alleged deportation of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation or their unlawful transfer to other parts of the temporarily occupied territories.”
“As I noted to the United Nations Security Council last September, these alleged acts are being investigated by my office as a priority. Children cannot be treated as the spoils of war,” Khan said.
And while Russia rejected the allegations and warrants of the court as null and void, others said the ICC action will have an important impact.
“The ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long,” said Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “The warrants send a clear message that giving orders to commit, or tolerating, serious crimes against civilians may lead to a prison cell in The Hague.”
Crane, who indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor 20 years ago for crimes in Sierra Leone, said dictators and tyrants around the world “are now on notice that those who commit international crimes will be held accountable to include heads of state.”
Taylor was eventually detained and put on trial at a special court in the Netherlands. He was convicted and sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment.
“This is an important day for justice and for the citizens of Ukraine,” Crane told the AP.
On Thursday, a UN-backed inquiry cited Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, among potential issues that amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a “filtration” system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.
But on Friday, the ICC put the face of Putin on the child abduction allegations.
International court issues war crimes warrant for Putin
https://arab.news/gkmmw
International court issues war crimes warrant for Putin
- Russia is not a member of the ICC
- It was unclear how the ICC planned to enforce the warrant
- Kyiv hails ‘historic’ decision
Pet dogs and strays suffer in Asia heatwave
- Increasing number of animals suffer nosebleeds, severe skin rashes in Kolkata in heatwave
- Experts say climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, longer and more intense
Kolkata: Soaring temperatures across Kolkata have brought life in much of the Indian megacity to a standstill, but veterinarian Partha Das cannot recall a time when he was more busy.
His clinic has been swamped by distressed members of the public carrying in beloved pets suffering nosebleeds, severe skin rashes and lapses into unconsciousness in a relentless heatwave suffocating much of South and Southeastern Asia over the past week.
“Many pets are also hospitalized for three or four consecutive days, and they are taking a long time to get back to normal,” the 57-year-old told AFP from his surgery.
“We are getting several heatstroke cases in a day. It’s unprecedented.”
Kolkata has sweltered through days of punishing heat, peaking at 43 degrees Celsius for the hottest single April day since 1954, according to the city’s weather bureau.
Streets of the normally bustling colonial-era capital have been almost deserted in the afternoons as its 15 million people do what they can to stay out of the sun.
But even cats and dogs lucky enough to have an owner have been susceptible to falling ill, with Das saying the heat had triggered a surge in dehydration-related illnesses in pets from around the city.
Teacher Sriparna Bose said her two cats had become sullen and withdrawn in a way she hadn’t seen before when the heatwave hit.
“They are refusing food,” she said. “They hide in dark, cold corners of the room and won’t come out.”
The situation is worse for the 70,000 stray dogs estimated to live on city streets by municipal authorities, which have no owner but are often fed and tended to by nearby residents.
Many are spending the day taking refuge from the sun under parked cars, while a lucky few are hosed down by sympathetic humans to help them cool off.
“They are finding it difficult to stand on their soft paws because the roads are so hot,” said Gurshaan Kohli of Humanimal Foundation, a local animal welfare charity for stray animals.
“Scores of dogs and cats have died” even though he and his colleagues had rushed them to clinics for treatment, he added.
Large swathes of South and Southeast Asia are struggling through a heatwave that has broken temperature records and forced millions of children to stay home as schools close across the region.
Experts say climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, longer and more intense, while the El Nino phenomenon is also driving this year’s exceptionally warm weather.
The heat has taken its toll on animals across the continent.
“They are eating less, and they are reluctant to move,” Henna Pekko of Rescue PAWS, which operates an animal shelter near Thailand’s capital Bangkok, told AFP.
With temperatures in Thailand exceeding 40 degrees Celsius over the past week, Pekko said her charity had taken to bringing its rescues to the ocean to cool down with a swim, while older dogs were being kept indoors.
“We are definitely taking extra precautions because of this weather,” she told AFP, adding that the stress on animals from the heat was the worst she had experienced in the kingdom.
“Last year was bad. This year was worse.”
Minnesota man who regrets joining Daesh group faces sentencing on terrorism charge
- Federal prosecutors have recommended 12 years for Abelhamid Al-Madioum in recognition both of the seriousness of his crime and the help has he given the US
- Al-Madioum was 18 in 2014 when Daesh recruited him
MINNEAPOLIS, USA: A Minnesota man who once fought for the Daesh group in Syria but now expresses remorse for joining a “death cult” and has been cooperating with federal authorities will learn Wednesday how much prison time he faces.
Federal prosecutors have recommended 12 years for Abelhamid Al-Madioum in recognition both of the seriousness of his crime and the help has he given the US and other governments. His attorney says seven years is enough and that Al-Madioum, 27, stopped believing in the group’s extremist ideology years ago.
Al-Madioum was 18 in 2014 when Daesh recruited him. The college student slipped away from his family on a visit to their native Morocco in 2015. Making his way to Syria, he became a soldier for Daesh, until he was maimed in an explosion in Iraq. Unable to fight, he used his computer skills to serve the group. He surrendered to US-backed rebels in 2019 and was imprisoned under harsh conditions.
Al-Madioum returned to the US in 2020 and pleaded guilty in 2021 to providing material support to a designated terrorist organization. According to court filings, he has been cooperating with US authorities and allied governments. The defense says he hopes to work in future counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts.
“The person who left was young, ignorant, and misguided,” Al-Madioum said in a letter to US District Judge Ann Montgomery, who will sentence him.
“I’ve been changed by life experience: by the treachery I endured as a member of Daesh, by becoming a father of four, a husband, an amputee, a prisoner of war, a malnourished supplicant, by seeing the pain and anguish and gnashing of teeth that terrorism causes, the humiliation, the tears, the shame,” he added. “I joined a death cult, and it was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Prosecutors acknowledge that Al-Madioum has provided useful assistance to US authorities in several national security investigations and prosecutions, that he accepted responsibility for his crime and pleaded guilty promptly on his return to the US But they say they factored his cooperation into their recommended sentence of 12 years instead of the statutory maximum of 20 years.
“The defendant did much more than harbor extremist beliefs,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. “He chose violent action by taking up arms for Daesh.”
A naturalized US citizen, Al-Madioum was among several Minnesotans suspected of leaving the US to join the Daesh group, along with thousands of fighters from other countries worldwide. Roughly three dozen people are known to have left Minnesota to join militant groups in Somalia or Syria. In 2016, nine Minnesota men were sentenced on federal charges of conspiring to join Daesh.
But Al-Madioum is one of the relatively few Americans who’ve been brought back to the US who actually fought for the group. According to a defense sentencing memo, he’s one of 11 adults as of 2023 to be formally repatriated to the US from the conflict in Syria and Iraq to face charges for terrorist-related crimes and alleged affiliations with Daesh. Others received sentences ranging from four years to life plus 70 years.
Al-Madioum grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park in a loving and nonreligious family, the defense memo said. He joined Daesh because he wanted to help Muslims who he believed were being slaughtered by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in that country’s civil war. Daesh recruiters persuaded him “to test his faith and become a real Muslim.”
But he was a fighter for less than two months before he lost his right arm below the elbow in the explosion that also left him with two badly broken legs and other severe injuries. He may still require amputation of one leg, the defense says.
While recuperating in 2016, he met his first wife Fatima, an Daesh widow who already had a son and bore him another in 2017. They lived in poverty and under constant airstrikes. He was unable to work, and his stipend from Daesh stopped in 2018. They lived in a makeshift tent, the defense says.
He married his second wife, Fozia, in 2018. She also was a Daesh widow and already had a 4-year-old daughter. They had separated by early 2019. He heard later she and their daughter together had died. The first wife also is dead, having been shot in front of Al-Madioum by either rebel forces or an Daesh fighter in 2019, the defense says.
The day after that shooting, he walked with his sons and surrendered to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which held him under conditions the defense described as “heinous” for 18 months until the FBI returned him to the US
As for Al-Madioum’s children, the defense memo said they were eventually found in a Syrian orphanage and his parents will be their foster parents when they arrive in the US.
Polish officials condemn arson attack on Warsaw synagogue
- Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, quoting the country’s chief rabbi, said “someone tried to set fire to the Nozyk synagogue with a Molotov cocktail“
- A statement from the Jewish community in Warsaw expressed its “concern and indignation” at the attack
WARSAW: Polish authorities on Wednesday condemned an arson attack against a Warsaw synagogue.
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, quoting the country’s chief rabbi, said “someone tried to set fire to the Nozyk synagogue with a Molotov cocktail.”
“Thank God no-one was hurt,” the minister added in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“I condemn this shameful attack on the Nozyk synagogue in Warsaw,” Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote on X. “Anti-Semitism has no place in Poland. There is no place for hate in Poland.”
An AFP journalist at the scene saw a black stain across a window that appeared to have been caused by flames, but there was no major damage to the synagogue.
A statement from the Jewish community in Warsaw to AFP expressed its “concern and indignation” at the attack.
“Fortunately, the synagogue was empty at night and the material damage is minor,” it added.
The fire from the Molotov cocktail burned itself out outside the building, said the text, from Eliza Panek, vice president of the Jewish community in Warsaw.
“For the moment, we don’t know anything about the person or persons behind the attack, or their motives,” she added.
Warsaw police told AFP they “always take this kind of incident seriously” and the would do everything to ensure those responsible were punished.
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
But Sikorski’s message speculated on who might have carried out the attack on the 20th anniversary of Poland’s membership of the European Union.
“Maybe the same ones who scrawled the Stars of David in Paris?” he said.
French prosecutors started an investigation after several dozen Jewish symbols were daubed on buildings in Paris in October as tensions increased amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
France believes that Russian security services were behind the vandalism, an official French source said, but Russia has denied any involvement.
Saudi tourism launches first travel show in Indonesia
- Over 1.5 million Indonesians visited Saudi Arabia in 2023
- Saudi Tourism Authority exhibit in Jakarta runs until May 5
JAKARTA: The Saudi Tourism Authority launched on Wednesday its first show exhibition in Indonesia to introduce the Kingdom’s cultural and adventure destinations to visitors from the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.
The tourism sector has been booming under Vision 2030, as the Kingdom positions itself as a dynamic, diverse, year-round tourism destination and market that will contribute 10 percent to the gross domestic product by 2030.
Welcomed with dates and qahwa — traditional Arabic coffee — Indonesians flocked the STA exhibition inaugurated by Saudi Hajj and Umrah Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah and Alhasan Aldabbagh, STA president for Asia-Pacific markets, at the Kota Kasablanka Mall in South Jakarta.
“Saudi and Indonesia are good countries that have enjoyed social and economic ties for many, many years, and we have been receiving and welcoming many Indonesian travelers who are going for Umrah and Hajj,” Aldabbagh told reporters.
“We want to attract even more Indonesians, not just to do Umrah but to explore other places … Indonesia is a special market for us because of this strong relationship.”
More than 1.5 million Indonesians visited the Kingdom in 2023, but as most of them traveled for Umrah and focused on pilgrimage sites, Saudi authorities are hoping that they will begin to also explore the country’s rich history and heritage.
Aldabbagh was expecting about 10,000 visitors daily at the Jakarta exhibition, which will run until May 5.
“We want people to learn about all the attractions that we have in Saudi … to come with their families and enjoy and discover,” he said, giving as examples Jeddah and AlUla.
A historical city on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, Jeddah from the 7th century has been a major port for Indian Ocean trade routes and also the gateway for Muslim pilgrims to Makkah.
Featured on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Jeddah has a distinctive architectural tradition, with influences from along the ancient trade routes.
AlUla, another UNESCO site, is an ancient desert oasis and one of the most significant cultural cradles in the Arabian Peninsula.
The ancient kingdoms flourished in the AlUla Valley between 800 and 100 B.C. and were followed by Hegra — Saudi Arabia’s first location registered on the World Heritage List — was a major city of the Nabataean civilization whose capital, Petra, was located in present-day Jordan.
The Saudi travel show in Jakarta has already drawn interest from prospective visitors, who said they are intrigued by the variety of destinations the Kingdom had to offer.
“This is good for us to gain more information because we’ve never had this before, this is rare. Usually, we’ll get information from travel agencies, but this is coming straight from the Saudi authorities,” said Yudi Prasetyo, a Jakarta resident.
Another visitor, Linda Wardani, was curious to explore the Kingdom’s ancient sites, which she has so far known only from social media channels.
“We are curious to see AlUla looking so wonderful,” she said. “We are even more curious about other destinations in Saudi Arabia because when it comes to Umrah, the destinations are commonly known, but aside from that, we’re seeing the growth of Saudi Arabia and there are other tourist sites to see.”
Halid Umar Bakadam, CEO of Dream Tour travel agency, has also observed a growing interest beyond Umrah. His company now offers extended tours, where visitors can go and see other destinations in the Kingdom.
“They are welcoming more tourists,” he said. “For the new destinations, there are quite many people showing interest.”
Kenya flood toll rises to 179 as homes and roads are destroyed
- The death toll in Kenya exceeds that from flooding triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon late last year
- Last year’s rains followed the worst drought in large parts of East Africa in decades
NAIROBI: Floods and landslides across Kenya have killed 179 people since March, with hundreds of thousands forced to leave their homes, the government said on Wednesday, as dozens more were killed in neighboring Tanzania and Burundi.
Torrential rain and floods have destroyed homes, roads, bridges and other infrastructure across the region. The death toll in Kenya exceeds that from flooding triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon late last year.
Last year’s rains followed the worst drought in large parts of East Africa in decades.
In Kitengela, 33 km (20 miles) from Nairobi, Kenya Red Cross workers were helping to rescue residents whose homes were marooned by flood waters.
They were also trying to rescue tourists trapped at camps in Narok, 215 km from Nairobi, the Kenya Red Cross said on X.
Nairobi’s highways authority said it had closed a section of a highway leading to the city and at least three other roads across the country due to flooding and debris.
The disaster prompted Pope Francis to speak out in sympathy with Kenyans during a general audience on Wednesday at the Vatican.
“I ... wish to express to the people of Kenya my spiritual closeness at this time as severe flooding has tragically taken the lives of many of our brothers and sisters, injured others and caused widespread destruction,” he said.
