Scholz hails Putin’s ICC arrest warrant

 BERLIN – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has commended the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

“The International Criminal Court is the right institution to investigate war crimes,” Scholz said of the decision at a press conference in Tokyo on Saturday.

He added: “And it is the case that no one is above the law.”

The warrant issued on Friday by the UN-backed court in The Hague, Netherlands, was for the forced deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia.

The court, in a statement, said “there are reasonable grounds” to believe that Putin bears “individual criminal responsibility” for the deportations.

He also is facing arrest as commander in chief of the Russian armed forces for “his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission.”

Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the warrant “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The actual prosecution and trial of Putin for war crimes is unlikely since Russia will not send him to The Hague.

But the warrant could complicate Putin’s life and limit his travel opportunities, as he faces arrest if he goes to a country that supports the court.