THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court on Friday (Nov 28) rejected a request by former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte to be released from detention ahead of his trial on crimes against humanity during his war on drugs.
Presiding judge Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza told a hearing that lawyers for the 80-year-old had not laid out strong enough precautions to warrant a temporary release from custody in The Hague, where the court is based.
Duterte’s lawyers, appealing against an earlier refusal, had called for a “humanitarian” parole because of the state of his health.
The judge said “the conditions for release proposed were not sufficient to mitigate the risks it found in relation to Mr Duterte’s interim release”.
The court also “rejected the defence’s argument that Mr Duterte should be released for humanitarian reasons”.
Duterte, who was president from 2016 to 2022, was detained in Manila on Mar 11 and taken to the ICC prison at Scheveningen, near The Hague. He appeared very weak, barely speaking, when he made his first court appearance by video.
The charges against Duterte have been made over the campaign against drug traffickers and consumers during his presidency which rights groups say left thousands dead.
The court is yet to give a ruling on whether Duterte is fit to stand trial. A ruling in October rejected claims by his defence that the ICC was not competent to judge Duterte on three charges of crimes against humanity.
One charge concerns 19 murders committed between 2013 and 2016, when Duterte was mayor of Davao City. A second relates to 14 killings of alleged drug bosses in 2016 and 2017, when he was president. The third covers 43 killings of suspected low-level drug users or dealers.
