How likely is it that Putin will ever appear in a courtroom?
As the ICC issues an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, how likely is it that he will ever appear in a courtroom?
A few weeks ago I sat down in the US State Department with President Joe Biden‘s ambassador for Global Criminal Justice.
Beth Van Schaack is the woman the president has tasked with pursuing the Russian leader to the dock.
I asked her: “Many will see it as inconceivable that Vladimir Putin could be put on trial for war crimes. How important is it to pursue justice however unlikely it may be?”
Ukraine war latest: Judges issue arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes
“Well…” she said, disagreeing with the premise of my question… “Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, Hissene Habre of Chad? I don’t think any of those men thought they would ever see the inside of a courtroom and every single one of them did…
“We need to play a long game here. One never knows how situations will change.
“And as long as you have collected evidence, produced dossiers on responsible individuals, you can stand ready until a court somewhere around the world is able to suddenly assert jurisdiction, and then the prosecutors will move.”
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ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin
A global effort for justice
Ms Van Schaack leads the US Office of Global Criminal Justice. Her job is to advise the Secretary of State (Antony Blinken) and other leadership around the US on issues of justice and accountability.
Her team has worked with prosecutors and human rights organisations globally to investigate and collate evidence from Ukraine, building a case against Russian individuals leading all the way to Mr Putin himself.
“We’ve now seen war crimes being committed on a systemic basis across all areas where Russia’s troops are deployed; terrible stories, credible, corroborated by a UN Commission of Inquiry and others, of civilians being deliberately targeted of disproportionate force being used, civilians being killed in Russian custody, POWs being killed, and then efforts to cover up these crimes…” she told me.
“We’ve seen the satellite imagery and other imagery even just taken from ordinary CCTV cameras on people’s front yards of bodies lying, hands tied behind their back clear evidence of either torture, or summary execution-style killings.
“There’s also the attacks on a theatre, on a train station of people fleeing the conflict. You have attacks on ordinary convoys of civilians trying to get out; people just going to work, carrying grocery bags with their groceries strewn around the dead body….”
Beth Van Schaack has been tasked with pursuing Putin to the dock
She continued: “These images do stick in one’s head. They’re searing, searing images, and all of them now are being collected by the prosecutor general but other investigative organisations including the UN Commission of Inquiry, the International Criminal Court, and the European prosecutorial authorities who are increasingly united around the imperative of justice.”
Connecting the dots
Ambassador Van Schaack explained that crimes can be linked and lines are drawn to show that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin was, through his authority, responsible for these crimes.
“We need to connect the crimes we’re seeing on the ground – that we have very clear digital evidence of – with those and in the position of command and control.
“So go up the chain of command – who ordered these offences? Who allowed them to be committed? Who has failed to prosecute and investigate those deemed most responsible? Who has failed to properly supervise their subordinates? That’s now the challenge – that linkage evidence.”
On the likelihood of an arrest of officials around President Putin, she said: “I think what drives everyone in this field is the idea that someday, circumstances will change.
“Someone will slip up, someone will travel, they will slip in with a false identity, and individuals will recognise them on the street, they will contact law enforcement and law enforcement will be ready, because we will have collected evidence from the start of this terrible conflict, precisely to be ready for that moment.”
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Different avenues to justice
Ms Van Schaack described several avenues that will be pursued to seek justice and there are three currently operational as we speak.
“Number one is the Prosecutor General in Ukraine, investigating these cases in his own domestic system with his colleagues, with support from the international community. The UK, the EU and the United States have brought a number of cases, have achieved some convictions, and a number of cases are ongoing,” she said.
“Avenue number two is the International Criminal Court currently seized of this matter, looking at cases that may be more appropriate for an international court to take.”
This is the avenue through which the arrest warrant for Mr Putin has now been issued.
She continued: “Avenue three, which should not be forgotten, is domestic courts around the world. Many European states have formed a joint investigative team to share information directly with each other about the condition of potential abuses, and potential responsible individuals.”
Ukraine has also sought some sort of mechanism to be able to prosecute the specific crime of aggression.
On this, Ms Van Schaack said: “This is a high priority for Ukraine, because they see that initial act of aggression as being the original sin that unleashed all of the other war crimes and atrocities that we’re seeing around the country.”
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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