Rights group submits more evidence in ICC case vs Duterte, drug war

A human rights group, in their International Criminal Court (ICC) case against the Philippine government's war on drugs, presented more evidence against President Rodrigo Duterte.

In a third pleading with the ICC's Prosecutor's Office dated January 21, 2021, the Rise Up for Life and for Rights, assisted by the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL), submitted the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' June 4, 2020 report on the situation in the Philippines.

The report found that, officially, 8,663 people had been killed in the country's war on drugs, though some estimates put the real toll at almost 30,000.

Furthermore, the UNHCHR found that of the 25 operations in which 45 people were killed in Metro Manila between August 2016 and June 2017, post-operational police reports contained strikingly similar language and that the “police repeatedly recovered guns bearing the same serial numbers from different victims in different locations.”

This suggested that the guns were planted and recycled as evidence.

The UNHCHR also claimed that the Philippine National Police had consistently refused to implement transparency and accountability mechanisms despite calls for such from Philippine stakeholders and the international community.

Impeding, intimidating

The rights group also argued that Duterte's threats against officials of the ICC amounted to “[i]mpeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties,” and thus in violation of Article 70 of the Rome Statute.

The group then pointed to Duterte's threat to have ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda arrested if she continued with the investigation on the war on drugs.

The group also claimed that Duterte had heaped abusive language on the ICC and its personnel after he called a UN special rapporteur “malnourished” and referred to the ICC prosecutor as “that black woman.”

Thus, having  violated Article 70 and "[p]ursuant to Rule 165 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and within the reglementary period prescribed in Rule 164, the ICC Prosecutor should immediately initiate an investigation in relation to these offences against the administration of justice," asserted the rights group.

"Respondent Duterte should [thus] be held accountable for his blatant attempt to pervert the course of justice by intimidating and retaliating against the officials of the Court."

Last December, the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor said there was "reasonable basis" to believe that crimes against humanity were committed in the Duterte Administration's war on drugs.

"The Office is satisfied that information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, and the infliction of serious physical injury and mental harm as other inhumane acts were committed on the territory of the Philippines between at least July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019 in connection to the WoD campaign launched throughout the country," the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor said in its report. — DVM/MDM, GMA News