Russia has placed International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan on its wanted list after the court indicted President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes, the independent Mediazona news website reported Friday.
Khan’s photo and personal information are visible on the Interior Ministry’s search database, Mediazona reported.
The ministry’s listing does not specify which crime Khan is accused of.
Its website was inaccessible to The Moscow Times on Friday afternoon.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, opened a criminal investigation against Khan in March based on the ICC’s “unlawful” decision to seek Putin’s arrest.
The Investigative Committee said Khan was being investigated on the grounds of “criminal prosecution of a person known to be innocent… and preparation of an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection.”
The Hague-based ICC had announced an arrest warrant for Putin and his children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March on the war crime accusation of illegally deporting Ukrainian children.
More than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov this month called the ICC “a puppet in the hands of the so-called collective West,” commenting on Putin’s arrest warrant.
Zelensky has hailed the court’s move as a “historic decision from which historic responsibility will begin.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said the arrest warrant for Putin was “justified.”
AFP contributed reporting.
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