Philippine Senate launches probe of Duterte’s ICC arrest

MANILA - The Philippine Senate said on March 17 that it will conduct a formal probe of former

president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest

and swift handover last week to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is to try him for alleged crimes against humanity.

The 79-year-old, the first Asian former head of state charged by the ICC, stands accused of the crime against humanity of murder over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups have said killed thousands.

The probe was initiated by Senator Imee Marcos, sister of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr but a close friend of Mr Duterte’s eldest daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte.

The two families have had a spectacular falling out since Mr Marcos teamed up with Ms Duterte to win an election landslide in 2022.

The latter has since been impeached

on charges that include an alleged assassination plot against the President.

“As chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I am calling for an urgent investigation into the arrest of former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte, an issue that has deeply divided the nation,” Ms Marcos said in a statement released on March 17.

“It is imperative to establish whether due process was followed and to ensure that his legal rights were not just upheld but protected,” she said, adding: “Our sovereignty and legal processes must remain paramount.”

Mr Duterte was arrested at Manila airport on March 11 after a brief trip to Hong Kong and flown to the Netherlands just hours later, where he was turned over to the ICC.

The Senate has set a public hearing for March 20 and invited top police and other government officials to give evidence.

Ms Marcos has tracked a course largely independent from her brother on many issues, though she is running for re-election under the administration ticket for the May 12 midterm elections.

Hours after the arrest, she challenged the wisdom of the arrest of “poor president Duterte”, warning at a news conference: “This can only lead to trouble”.

Separately, a veteran international lawyer with ICC experience has been tapped to join the former president’s defence team.

Mr Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli national, has previously represented clients at The Hague including former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and Ms Aisha Gaddafi, daughter of the deceased Libyan dictator.

“The president (has) already appointed Nicholas Kaufman as his lawyer,” Ms Duterte confirmed at a press briefing outside the Hague, according to a transcript made public on March 16 by her office.

“We had a meeting with him yesterday, and then we will have a meeting in person when he arrives this weekend,” she told reporters after her father’s March 14 appearance.

In an email to AFP, Mr Kaufman said he was “honoured to have been asked to assist former president Duterte in composing his defence team in which my future role is yet to be precisely determined”.

“Indeed, I look forward to denouncing the state-sponsored abduction of the former president to a case in The Hague devoid of jurisdiction”. AFP