Bersamin on Duterte lawyer plea to return client to PH: 'Who's Kaufman?'

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Wednesday shrugged off the request to allow former President Rodrigo Duterte to return to the Philippines, saying the Philippine government does not care about the opinions of his legal counsel. 

This developed after lawyer Nicholas Kaufman requested that the Marcos administration allow Duterte's return to the Philippines if their request for interim release is granted, citing the former president's "age and conditions of detention" at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands.

"Who is Kaufman?" Bersamin asked reporters at the Senate when he was asked to comment on Kaufman's appeal. 

"I am not too sure how to respond to that because that's outside of our purview. Whatever opinions supposed lawyers have about their respective clients, we leave it to them. We should not be made to react because we do not care about their comments," said Bersamin, a former Supreme Court chief justice and the most senior member of the Marcos Cabinet.

Kaufman had said that Duterte's "progressively deteriorating medical situation" has affected his ability to assimilate the evidence and to give instructions. 

"The defense sincerely hopes that the current administration, which [saw] fit to outsource its obligation to afford the former president a fair trial in the country of his birth, will now let him return home, with dignity, for the purpose of interim release until the end of all legal proceedings," the lawyer said in a message to GMA Integrated News.

Duterte, 80, has been in ICC custody since March. In August, he reiterated his request to the ICC for an interim release to an undisclosed country "subject to any conditions deemed appropriate."

The ICC on Monday announced that the confirmation of charges hearing for Duterte's crimes against humanity case was postponed after the latter's camp said that he was "not fit to stand trial." 

The hearing was initially set for September 23. — VDV, GMA Integrated News