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Duterte's counsel tells Usec. Claire Castro to 'not interfere with my job'
THE HAGUE – Atty. Nicholas Kaufman called out Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro to “not interfere” with his job of representing his client, former President Rodrigo Duterte, in his case before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Duterte’s legal counsel said this to GMA Integrated News when asked to comment about Castro’s recent remark that “he should do better than that.” The undersecretary was responding to a question about the defense’s move to submit to the ICC the panel report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the arrest of Duterte.
“Well, I’d kindly thank Claire Castro not to interfere with the job that I'm doing, just as much as I wouldn’t interfere with the job that she’s doing: peddling the misinformation of her own administration,” Kaufman told GMA Integrated News on Saturday.
“All I can say is that she seems to have a rather unhealthy obsession with me.”
GMA News Online asked Castro for comment but has yet to receive her reply as of posting time.
To recall, Kaufman requested the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I on June 27 to grant their petition to reply to the Office of the Prosecutor’s response regarding the defense team’s urgent request for Duterte’s interim release.
The defense argued that their petition, if granted, would allow them to “present official Senate documentation to balance the factual gossip presented by the Prosecution, derived not from
proper investigative work but, rather, from newspaper clippings.”
On July 8, Castro remarked that Kaufman, “for the fees he has allegedly been demanding from his client” should “do better than that,” and instead “concentrate on the allegations and admissions of the former President of his killings.”
“Dapat mas pagbutihan pa niya ang research ng kanyang mga facts para hindi po siya maligaw,” Castro continued, adding that using the Senate panel report might be detrimental to Duterte’s case.
(Kaufman should research his facts better so he won’t get lost.)
However, Kaufman said it is his job to “decide what has a positive and negative impact” on his client’s case, adding that the Senate panel report was “comprehensive” as it “followed on a number of hearings.”
“I don’t think that the Senate panel report can have a negative impact on the case. It’s my job to decide what has a positive and negative impact on the case. I believe that the Senate report expresses the thoughts of the people. I believe that it helps our case. Especially with respect to the request for interim release, when the prosecution seems to be arguing that the defense claims that the rendition, as I would call it, to The Hague was unlawful. We believe that it was unlawful," he said.
Led by Senator Imee Marcos, sister of President Ferdinand ''Bongbong'' Marcos Jr., the committee had found that there were “glaring violations on the rights” of the former president.
During an address with their family’s supporters on July 8, Vice President Sara Duterte said she did not discuss the Senate panel’s findings with Senator Marcos, but mentioned the latter had already met with Kaufman privately.
“They had a private meeting here in The Hague when she [Senator Marcos] came for a rally. I do not know what they discussed. And Atty. Kaufman is careful as well about what he discusses with me, because there are many parts of the defense strategy that are confidential and privileged between the lawyer and his client,” Vice President Duterte explained.
Expensive fee?
Meanwhile, at a recent address, the Vice President responded to a supporter who relayed what they called detractors’ comments about how Kaufman’s fee is “expensive”.
“Sorry, hindi sa hindi ko alam. I am not paying for Atty. Kaufman, and I do not know the professional fee arrangements between [him] and former President Duterte because it is confidential and between the lawyer and client only. So, I'm not paying for him,” the younger Duterte remarked.
When asked by GMA Integrated News about the fee he receives from representing the former president, Kaufman said this matter is “completely not relevant.”
“I don’t think it’s the concern of anybody–how anyone gets paid, how anyone is financing me, or if they are financing me, or whether I’m doing it pro bono. [It] is just completely not relevant. Everybody is entitled to the defense, which he [Duterte] believes is the best defense that he can receive,” Kaufman said.
Since March 12, former President Duterte has been in ICC custody and is currently detained at Scheveningen Prison in The Hague for charges of crimes against humanity for the alleged extrajudicial killings during his administration’s war on drugs.
His lawyers have since insisted that the ICC lacks jurisdiction to try him for the charges he is facing and are seeking his release to an undisclosed country. Amid these, they have been reviewing the batches of evidence disclosed by the Office of Prosecution, in preparation for the confirmation of charges hearing set for September 23. —with a report from Anna Felicia Bajo/KG, GMA Integrated News
