Hungary to quit International Criminal Court as Netanyahu arrives
The Israeli prime minister is set to meet Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán on Thursday.
News Moderator - Tomas Kauer Hungary announced Thursday it would officially withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“The government will initiate the termination procedure on Thursday, in accordance with the constitutional and international legal frameworks,” Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s office, told Hungarian news agency MTI.
The announcement comes shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was hit with an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, arrived in Budapest for a state visit. He is scheduled to meet Orbán on Thursday morning.
Orbán invited Netanyahu to Hungary in November 2024, when the ICC warrant against him was issued, and said that the ruling would have no effect in his country.
As a member of the ICC, Hungary was theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to an ICC warrant.
In a similar incident, Russian President Vladimir Putin — who is also under an ICC arrest warrant over war crimes in Ukraine — was not arrested when he traveled to ICC signatory Mongolia in September 2024.
