Lula da Silva backs off pledge Vladimir Putin won't be arrested on visit

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva backed off a pledge that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would be safe to travel to next year’s Group of 20 summit in Brazil without fear of arrest, saying that issue is up to his country’s judiciary.

“If Putin decides to go to Brazil, it will be the courts who decide whether or not he will be arrested, not me,” Lula told a news conference in New Delhi on Monday following this year’s G-20 summit.
 

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges in March. Russia dismissed the allegations, but Putin has made only a few international trips since, last month skipping a BRICS summit in South Africa.

Lula’s comments appeared to backtrack from assurances he’d given just over a day earlier. “I believe that Putin can easily go to Brazil,” Lula said in a video interview with Indian news platform Firstpost.