The North Gauteng High Court has heard that South Africa’s National Director for Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi received a formal request from the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to issue a warrant to arrest Russian PresidentThis was revealed in a brief hearing in North Gauteng High Court sitting in Pretoria on Friday to force government to commit to arresting Putin.
According to an affidavit filed on Thursday by the Director-General of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Advocate Doctor Mashabane, the department formally requested the NDPP to issue a warrant of arrest for Putin.went to court to force government to commit to its obligations, under the Rome Statute, to execute an arrest warrant for Putin issued by the International Criminal Court .
It launched the application to clarify government’s obligations and to try set a precedent to avoid a repeat of a situation in 2015 involving former Sudanese leader, Omar al-Bashir, the party said.The ICC confirmed “all state parties, including the Republic of South Africa, are obligated to arrest President Putin in terms of the ICC’s arrest warrant and request for co-operation”, the court order said.