ICC grants Duterte camp request, defers deciding on interim release

The International Criminal Court has granted the request of the camp of former President Rodrigo Duterte to suspend the tribunal’s decision on his request for interim release until his defense lawyers have collated all the needed supporting information.

In a majority decision, the Pre-Trial Chamber 1 deferred the issuance of a decision on the interim release request until further action is undertaken by the Defence on the matter, or until the Chamber deems it appropriate.

According to the decision, Judge María del Socorro Flores Liera dissented against the ruling concurred in by presiding Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc and Judge Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou.

The tribunal said that "interim release proceedings pursuant to article 60(2) of the Rome Statute may exclusively be triggered by the ‘person subject to a warrant of arrest,’ who preserves the right to submit a request for interim release, or not, at any point in time ‘pending trial’."

"Accordingly, and to ensure that a decision on the Interim Release Request is appropriately informed, the Majority considers it appropriate, in the circumstances, to defer the issuance of its decision on the interim release request until further action is undertaken by the defense on the matter, or until when the Chamber will deem it appropriate," the decision read.

"The Majority emphasises that the present decision shall not be construed as prejudging any matter to be determined in the context of the proceedings related to the interim release request, including in its eventual decision thereon," it added.

According to a redacted public copy of the defense's request before the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I, signed by Duterte’s counsel, Atty. Nicholas Kaufman, filed on 14 July 2025 and made public on 18 July, the defense said the Pre-Trial Chamber should not make its first determination on interim release until certain materials, whose contents, according to them, were withheld in the public version, are made available to both the defense and the Chamber.

“At the time Mr Duterte’s request for interim release was submitted on 12 June 2025, the Defence had been, for some time, seeking to obtain [REDACTED]… The Defence’s attempts to obtain [REDACTED] over the course of two months have, for the most part, been slow-walked and stymied,” the filing read.

The Duterte camp in June asked the ICC that he be released to a country, the name of which has been redacted from the copy of the urgent request for interim release posted on the ICC's website.

According to the 16-page request, the undisclosed country has agreed to take in the former leader, who is facing charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the killings under his war on drugs when he was mayor of Davao City and when he was president of the Philippines.

"Mr. Duterte does not meet any of the conditions to warrant further pre-trial detention as provided in Article 58(1)(b). He does not pose an objective risk of flight, nor is his arrest necessary to ensure the integrity of the investigations or to preclude the continued commission of crimes.

He must, as a result, be immediately released from ICC custody," Kaufman said in his request for Duterte's interim release. –Celine Serquña, Jay-Vee Pangan, Andy Peñafuerte/NB, GMA Integrated News