South Africa's opposition party wants government to arrest Putin

South Africa's main opposition party has said it filed papers with a local court requesting that its government arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he travels to the country for the upcoming BRICS summit.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant in March for Putin, who is expected to attend the summit in Johannesburg in late August.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said its preemptory court action is intended to ensure that South Africa, a signatory to the Rome Statute, upholds its obligations by arresting Putin and handing him over to The Hague-based court.

"President Putin is accused by the ICC of being responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of children, and the unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation under Articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute," the DA said in a statement.

Russia's top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, will be among several ministers attending the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting in Cape Town in early June.

Russia is a close ally of South Africa, a fellow member of BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies that also includes Brazil, India and China.

South Africa's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it granted diplomatic immunity to foreign officials who will attend the BRICS meetings.

Diplomatic immunity

Clayson Monyela, the head of public diplomacy at South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) said the notice in the gazette for diplomatic immunity is a standard conferment of immunities that South Africa does for all international conferences and summits irrespective of the level of participation.

He said immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals.

"These immunities do not override any warrant that may have been issued by any international tribunal against any attendee of the conference," Monyela wrote on Twitter.

The DA said it had approached the court to avoid a repeat of the 2015 incident, where former Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, wanted by the ICC, attended an AU summit in South Africa and was not arrested.

"The DA is seeking this declaratory order to ensure that there is no legal ambiguity relating to the procedure to be followed, and the obligations placed upon the state, should President Putin set foot in South Africa," said the statement.

The party said the application outlines precise steps to be taken should a request for Putin's arrest and surrender be forthcoming from the ICC.

"These steps include that the Director General of Justice and Constitutional Development must immediately forward the request to a Magistrate in terms of section 8(2) of the Implementation Act. Subsequently, any warrant of arrest endorsed by a Magistrate must be given effect to by the government, following which President Putin must be detained and surrendered to the ICC," it said.