‘People’s court’ tries Vladimir Putin for war in Ukraine

Judges Priya Pillai, left, Zak Yacoob, centre, and Stephen Rapp listen to the first witness of the ‘people’s tribunal’, where prosecutors symbolically put Russian President Vladimir Putin on trial for the crime of aggression in Ukraine in The Hague, Netherlands (Peter Dejong/AP)

A “people’s court” has put Russian President Vladimir Putin on trial for the crime of aggression over his invasion of Ukraine.

It is a symbolic move to close an “accountability gap” in the absence of an international tribunal with jurisdiction.