South Africa says it will provide diplomatic immunity to all leaders attending a summit of the BRICS group in August, in a move to protect the conference.
The African country said on Tuesday it will extend its Diplomatic Immunity and Privileges Act to all international officials, who plan to attend the summit of the BRICS block of developing nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
“This is a standard conferment of immunities that we do for all international conferences and summits held in South Africa, irrespective of the level of participation,” South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs announced.
"The immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals. They are meant to protect the conference and its attendees from the jurisdiction of the host country for the duration of the conference," it added.
The government notice about immunity has prompted speculations that Johannesburg is providing immunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to pave the way for him to attend the summit despite an ICC arrest warrant.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest in March over the alleged war crimes in Ukraine as Moscow has rejected the warrant as "null and void". .......more below
