Cpi warrant ignored, Italy blocks Putin's arrest

One of the reasons that allegedly prompted Russian residentVladimir Putin not to come to Italy for the Pope's funeral was the fear that he might be arrested because of the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine. A warrant that is actually ineffective in Italy at the moment because the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio has never forwarded the acts to the Court of Appeal in Rome. A stalemate that is said to have led to some friction between Rome and The Hague, according to Corriere della Sera.

It is an analogous affair to what happened with the alleged Libyan murderer and torturer Almasri, as also highlighted by La Repubblica: in that case too, after the detention deemed irregular by the judges, the Ministry of Via Arenula decided not to forward the documentation to the court, effectively causing his release.

The one on Putin would be a political choice, like the one that similarly renders ineffective the arrest warrant against the head of the Israeli government Benjamin Netanyahu, accused of war crimes committed in Gaza. "On him," writes the Corriere, "the Italian government has made it explicitly clear that it considers heads of state and government protected by an immunity that preserves them from prosecution at least as long as they are in office, and the same reasoning could apply to Putin. An assessment contested by the judges of the ICC, who do not consider it applicable to war crimes or crimes against humanity, as well as genocide'.