A Moscow court ordered an arrest in absentia of Reine Alapini-Gansou, the second vice-president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Nov. 13.
The case against Alapini-Gansou was launched under the article of “illegal detention,” Mediazona reported without providing additional details. She has also been placed on the wanted list, the court told the Interfax news agency.
Russia has extensively used lawfare to pressure and intimidate ICC judges since the Hague court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and official Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2023 over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
A Beninese jurist with extensive experience in women’s rights and human rights advocacy, Alapini-Gansou was elected to the ICC in 2018. Earlier this year, she became a deputy to the ICC’s president, Tomoko Akane, who issued the arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023. Russia opened an investigation into Akane and other judges soon after.
The arrest warrant against Alapini-Gansou, who was one of the judges who issued arrest warrants against Moscow’s proxies in South Ossetia over alleged war crimes during the 2008 Georgia war, comes only days after a Russian warrant in absentia for another ICC judge, Haykel Ben Mahfoudh.
Ben Mahfoudh was a member of a panel that issued an arrest warrant for former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov over suspected war crimes in Ukraine.
The Tunisian lawyer and a specialist in international law was elected to the ICC for a nine-year term in March 2024.
The ICC in March also issued arrest warrants for two Russian military commanders for carrying out strikes on Ukrainian electricity infrastructure during the winter of 2022- 2023.
Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Sokolov “are each allegedly responsible” for a number of war crimes, including “directing attacks at civilian sites,” the court said.
Volodymyr Hryshko
