Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will speak during his administration in the Philippine Senate in Manila, Philippines on October 28, 2024, during a Senate investigation into the so-called war on drugs. Aaron Fabira/AP hidden caption
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Aaron Fabira/AP
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte landed in the Netherlands on Wednesday and was taken into custody at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he will face charges of crimes against humanity.
Duterte’s successor and political rival, current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr., announced Duterte’s arrest in the Philippines’ capital Manila late Tuesday. Duterte is accused of crimes against humanity, and is linked to multiple extrajudicial killings made during his tenure as he tried to thwart the country’s drug trafficking using the often brutal tactics the former president once celebrated.
Marcos, who ran the country as an increasingly authoritarian leader from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, said an arrest warrant from the ICC prompted an Interpol Red notice, requiring Philippine police to arrest Duterte when he landed in Manila on a flight from Hong Kong.
“We followed the necessary legal procedures,” Marcos said at a press conference late Tuesday.
The Gulfstream aircraft carrying the 79-year-old Duterte, who took office in 2022, was arrested early Tuesday and stopped for several hours in Dubai on a long journey from Manila where supporters gathered to protest outside the airport before departure.
Duterte became Asia’s first former leader and is charged in the Hague court. His daughter, current vice president Sarah Duterte, responded to questions from local journalists, explaining her arrests and flights to the Netherlands, in the form of a “national taunt” that was made for political purposes.
However, local advocacy groups that have long criticized his tenure and tactics have celebrated the move. “We enjoy his arrest victory today,” said a National Union lawyer representing victims and their families’ victims. “It shows how international law can be used to hold state officials occupying the post and carrying out functions that do not directly contact the underlying acts, yet still hold them accountable.”
Duterte’s violent crackdown has killed up to 30,000 people during his presidency and earlier as mayor of Davao City, Amnesty International.
Duterte, the lawyer himself, previously said he prefers to face trials within the Philippines under local judges, local prosecutors and local law, but he said he would not seek protection in a third country to avoid warrants issued by the ICC.
Duterte supporters have already filed three petitions before the Philippine Supreme Court demanding that the return be made to Manila on behalf of other daughters, Veronica Duterte and her son, current Davao Mayor Baste Duterte. The petition argues that the Philippines has withdrawn the treaty that empowers the ICC and should no longer have jurisdiction.
ICC prosecutors have argued that since the case he and his team investigated Duterte’s prosecutors before 2019, the court still has jurisdiction over allegations of crime.
However, Philippine President Marcos said that the country’s prosecutors and police had no choice but to respect the ICC warrant. He also argued that the ICC investigation did not include cooperation from Philippine law enforcement.
ICC prosecutors say that, led by Chief Karim Khan, there is reasonable basis to believe that security forces under Duterte’s control have killed dozens of people labeled criminals and drug dealers. The ICC began its investigation in 2021, focusing on the period between 2011 and 2019. Duterte became president in 2016.
Duterte’s first appearance in the court was scheduled as he arrived in the Netherlands, according to the ICC.
