President Cyril Ramaphosa greets Russian President Vladimir Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace in St Petersburg as part of the African peace mission talks on 17 June 2023.
PHOTO: Twitter/@PresidencyZA
- President Cyril Ramaphosa filed a confidential affidavit ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attendance at the BRICS summit in South Africa in August.
- The DA approached the court seeking a declaratory order compelling the state to arrest Putin if he sets foot in SA.
- Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the confidentiality was in line with the ICC’s requirements.
President Cyril Ramaphosa filed a confidential answering affidavit ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anticipated attendance at the BRICS summit in South Africa in August.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the confidentiality of the president’s affidavit was in line with requirements by the International Crimes Court (ICC).
He said: “The respondents are obliged in terms of international law to keep the interactions with the ICC on the warrant of arrest against President Putin confidential. The ICC requires the fact of the request for cooperation to be kept confidential. To date, there has been no relaxation of the requirement of confidentiality by the ICC.”
The move by the president comes after the DA approached the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to request an order to arrest and surrender Putin to the ICC should he attend the August summit among BRICS leaders in SA.
READ | Putin’s problems at home could be SA’s get-out-of-jail-free card
The government missed the 23 June deadline to answer the DA’s case and asked for a three-day extension. This was unexpected, considering that the state had agreed to file a response by Friday afternoon.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, accusing him of war crimes relating to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine since February last year.
South Africa is a signatory to the ICC and is obliged to arrest Putin if he attends the summit in August.
DA leader John Steenhuisen slammed the secrecy of Ramaphosa’s affidavit. He said portions of it did not warrant confidentiality, and the party would argue in court that portions be made public.
He said: “We agreed to them filing the affidavit confidentially but reserved our right to challenge the need for confidentiality once we received the affidavit. While we accept that certain portions of the affidavit can remain confidential, we do not accept that there is any basis for the majority of the affidavit to be confidential. We will argue that the court should refuse to keep those portions of the affidavit confidential.”
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