Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (Credit: Wikipedia )

By Gary Raynaldo   –  DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Former Philippine President  Rodrigo Duterte is in The Hague facing war crime charges including murder stemming from his infamous “war on drugs” in which thousands of Filipinos were killed. Duterte, 79, was arrested by Philippine authorities in Manila on Tuesday and then transferred by plane to the Netherlands into custody of the International Criminal Court. The Hague-based ICC war tribunal issued an arrest warrant last week for Duterte who led the Philippines from 2016-2022. The ICC said judges found reasonable grounds to believe that Duterte is individually responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder, allegedly committed in the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019.

Duterte’s lawyer Says Arrest Is “Pure and Simple Kidnapping”

Rodrigo Roa Duterte appearing for the first time before the ICC judges on 14 March 2025  ©ICC-CPI

Duterte appeared Friday by videoconference before ICC judges where his lawyer Salvador Medialdea blasted his arrest as a “pure and simple kidnapping” in Manila. “Two days ago, the whole world has witnessed the degrading fashion in which a former president of a sovereign country was bundled into a private aircraft and summarily transported to The Hague,” Medialdea told the ICC court. “To us lawyers, this would be called an extrajudicial rendition. To the less legally inclined, it was a pure and simple kidnapping.”  

Duterte’s attorney Salvador Medialdea at  ICC preliminary hearing in The Hague Mar. 14, 2025. Duterte appeared before ICC  judges via video.  ©ICC-CPI

The ICC prosecutor estimated the death toll from the war on drugs to be between 12,000 and 30,000 from 2016 to 2019. They said several of these cases were extrajudicial killings.  In 2018, the ICC opened an investigation of Duterte and allegations of crimes committed during his war on drugs. The next year, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in a move many saw as an effort to escape accountability for the alleged crimes. However, the  ICC retained jurisdiction with regard to alleged crimes that occurred in the Philippines while it was a state party, from November 2011 to March 2019.

credit: icc/cpi / Headquarters of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Amnesty International said Duterte’s arrest is “a monumental step for justice”.    Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said:

“Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest is a long-awaited and monumental step for justice for the thousands of victims and survivors of his administration’s ‘war on drugs’, which turned much of the Philippines into a nation of mourning. The man who said, ‘my job is to kill’ oversaw the shootings to death of victims – including children – as part of a deliberate, widespread and well-organized campaign of state-sanctioned killings.”

Presiding Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc set a pretrial hearing date of Sept. 23 to determine if prosecution evidence is strong enough to merit sending the case to trial.