Tag: Former Philippine President

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he takes full responsibility for his “war on drugs” as he braces for a legal battle at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged crimes against humanity.

In a video message posted on his Facebook account, and viewed 10 million times, Duterte said it will be a “long” legal battle at the ICC, which took him into custody as his charter flight landed at Rotterdam The Hague airport on Wednesday evening.

He was transferred to a detention unit on the Dutch coast.

The ICC, in a statement, said it 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 November 2011 and March 2019.

Duterte’s “war on drugs” is said to have killed thousands of small-time drug dealers, users and others without trial.

The video that appeared to have been recorded inside the plane showed only Duterte speaking while wearing a plain white shirt.

Duterte was put on a chartered flight to The Hague on Tuesday to face trial after he was arrested at Manila International Airport upon his arrival from Hong Kong.

The plane made a stopover in Dubai before it continued to The Hague.

“Whatever happened in the past, I will be the front of our law enforcement and the military. I said this already, that I will protect you, and I will be responsible for everything,” the 79-year old former Philippine leader said in the over two-minute video.

“This will be a long legal proceeding, but I say to you, I will continue to serve my country. And so be it, if that is my destiny,” he added.

He assured his supporters he is well.

“I am okay, do not worry,” the 79-year-old former Philippine leader said.

Duterte, who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, could become the first Asian former head of state to go on trial at the ICC.

His daughter, Sara Duterte, the Philippine vice president, also arrived in The Hague on Wednesday to help arrange a legal team for her father.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by police at Manila’s international airport Tuesday on order of the International Criminal Court in connection with a case of crime against humanity filed against him, the Philippine government said.

Duterte was arrested after arriving from Hong Kong and police took him into custody on orders of the ICC, which has been investigating the massive killings that happened under the former president’s deadly crackdown against illegal drugs. President Ferdinand Marcos’ office said in a statement.

The ICC launched an investigation into drug killings under Duterte from Nov. 1, 2011, when he was still mayor of the southern city of Davao, to March 16, 2019, as possible crimes against humanity. Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the Rome Statute in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability over the killings.

The Duterte administration moved to suspend the global court’s investigation in late 2021 by arguing that Philippine authorities were already looking into the same allegations, arguing the ICC — a court of last resort — didn’t have jurisdiction.

Appeals judges at the ICC ruled in July 2023 the investigation could resume and rejected the Duterte administration’s objections. Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the ICC can step in when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute suspects in the most heinous international crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who succeeded Duterte in 2022 and became entangled in a bitter political dispute with the former president, has decided not to rejoin the global court. But the Marcos administration has said it would cooperate if the ICC asks international police to take Duterte into custody through a so-called Red Notice, a request for law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and temporarily arrest a crime suspect.

(AP)