Ex-President Rodrigo Duterte arrested upon arrival from HK based on ICC warrant
MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews / 11 March) – Former President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Tuesday morning on the strength of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). An official copy of the ICC arrest warrant was received earlier in the day by Interpol Manila, according to a statement posted by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO).
Duterte was served the warrant by the Prosecutor General upon his arrival from Hong Kong at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on board a Cathay Pacific aircraft that landed at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday.
The former president was accused of crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute for the thousands of alleged extrajudicial killings linked to his administration’s “war on drugs.”
The PCO said that Duterte and his group are in good health and were attended to by government physicians.
His arrest came almost three weeks before his 80th birthday on March 28.
The ICC investigation into the alleged crimes against humanity covers the period between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019, or including some of the years that the former president served as mayor of Davao City.
ICC Assistant to Counsel Kristina Conti, in a Facebook post after Duterte’s arrest, said, “When a person is arrested under a warrant of arrest from the ICC, he should be turned over to (a) law enforcement officer of a member state, and is to be flown to The Hague, The Netherlands ASAP.”
The ICC is based in The Hague, where it also maintains a detention facility for individuals who are facing trial for crimes in the Rome Statute.
The Philippines gained the attention of then-ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda a few months after Duterte became president.
In a statement on October 13, 2016, Bensouda said that her office was aware of “worrying reported extra-judicial killings of alleged drug dealers and users in the Philippines, which may have led to over 3,000 deaths in the past three months.”
“I am deeply concerned about these alleged killings and the fact that public statements of high officials of the Republic of the Philippines seem to condone such killings and further seem to encourage State forces and civilians alike to continue targeting these individuals with lethal force,” she said.
She added that “extra-judicial killings may fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court .. if they are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population pursuant to a State policy to commit such an attack.”
In February 2018, Bensouda announced that the ICC will “open a preliminary examination” into the situation in the Philippines following a “careful, independent and impartial review of a number of communications and reports documenting alleged crimes potentially falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.”
The announcement led to the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute on 17 March 2018. The country’s withdrawal took effect on 17 March 2019.
The Philippines had been a State party to the Rome Statute since 1 November 2011.
Despite the country’s withdrawal, the ICC Prosecutor was granted an authorization by the Court to open an investigation into the Philippine situation related to the “war on drugs” in a decision dated September 15, 2021.
In authorizing the investigation, the Court cited that based on available information, “a clear pattern of killings can be discerned covering the main period under examination, i.e. 1 July 2016 – 16 March 2019, and extending to the territory of the Philippines at large. This is a conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis of the Prosecutor’s submissions and the supporting material in the preceding section. In the view of the Chamber, a course of conduct, or an ‘overall flow of events’, is clearly discernible. Accordingly, the killings amount to an ‘attack’ within the meaning of Article 7(2)(a) of the Statute. In this context is noted that although the intensity of this course of conduct reduced on two occasions for relatively short periods of time following government decisions to suspend aspects of the so-called ‘war on drugs’ campaign, the killings did not stop completely and in any case the disruptions were only temporary.”
“It further appears, based on the available material as analyzed in the preceding section, that the killings were directed against persons allegedly associated with the use and trafficking of illegal drugs. Thus, the attack targeted a civilian population within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the Statute,” the Court added.
Article 7(2)(a) of the Rome Statute defines “attack directed against any civilian population” as a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack.
Article 7(1) defines crime against humanity as any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: murder, extermination, enslavement, and deportation or forcible transfer of population.
Lawyers allied with Duterte have maintained that the ICC no longer has jurisdiction of the crimes alleged as the Philippines had withdrawn from the Rome Statute.
Vice President Sara Duterte, the former president’s daughter, also said on 23 November 2023 that “any probe conducted by the ICC would be an intrusion into our internal matters, and a threat to our sovereignty. We are done talking with the ICC. Like what we have been doing from the beginning, we will not cooperate with them in any way, shape, or form.”
“To allow the ICC to investigate crimes that are now under the exclusive jurisdiction of our prosecutors and our Courts is not only patently unconstitutional but effectively belittles and degrades our country’s legal institutions,” she added.
Article 127-2 of the Rome Statute states that a country’s withdrawal from the treaty “shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, nor shall it prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.”
Article 127-2 means the Philippines is still obliged to cooperate in the investigation of cases that started before the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute took effect.
For his part, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had said on January 23, 2024, “Let me say this for the hundredth time: I do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines. I consider it as a threat to our sovereignty, therefore, the Philippine government will not lift a finger to help out in any investigation that the ICC conducts. However, as ordinary people, they can come and visit the Philippines. Pero hindi kami tutulong sa kanila (but we will not help them). In fact, binabantayan namin sila (we’re watching them) to ensure that they won’t come in contact with any agency of government.”
However, the assistance extended by the Philippine National Police (PNP) to Interpol showed that the government is now cooperating with the ICC.
In a video circulating on social media, Police Major General Nicolas Torre III, chief of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, informed Duterte that he is being arrested by virtue of the ICC warrant, and read the former president the Miranda doctrine.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Brony Lau, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch said, “The arrest of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a critical step for accountability in the Philippines. Duterte is facing charges of crimes against humanity in relation to thousands of extrajudicial killings in his ‘war on drugs’ between 2011 and 2019. His arrest could bring victims and their families closer to justice and sends the clear signal that no one is above the law. The Marcos government should swiftly surrender him to the ICC.” (H. Marcos C. Mordeno / MindaNews)
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