Former President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte speaks contained in the Southorn Stadium throughout a thanksgiving gathering organized by Hong Kong-based Filipino staff for the previous populist president in Hong Kong on March 9, 2025.
Vernon Yuen/AP
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Vernon Yuen/AP
MANILA, Philippines — Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila’s worldwide airport Tuesday on order of the Worldwide Legal Courtroom in reference to a case of crime in opposition to humanity filed in opposition to him, the Philippine authorities mentioned.
Duterte was arrested after arriving from Hong Kong and police took him into custody on orders of the ICC, which has been investigating the mass killings that occurred below the previous president’s lethal crackdown in opposition to unlawful medicine, President Ferdinand Marcos’ workplace mentioned in an announcement.
“Upon his arrival, the prosecutor normal served the ICC notification for an arrest warrant to the previous president for the crime of crime in opposition to humanity,” the federal government mentioned. “He is now within the custody of authorities.”
The shock arrest sparked a commotion on the airport, the place attorneys and aides of Duterte loudly protested that they, together with a health care provider and attorneys, had been prevented from coming near him after he was taken into police custody. “This can be a violation of his constitutional proper,” Sen. Bong Go, an in depth Duterte ally. advised reporters.
Duterte’s arrest and downfall shocked and drove households of the victims of his bloody crackdowns in opposition to unlawful medicine to tears.
A supporter of former President Rodrigo Duterte reacts upon discovering out he was arrested, on the airport in Manila, Philippines, Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
Aaron Favila/AP
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Aaron Favila/AP
“This can be a huge, long-awaited day for justice,” Randy delos Santos, the uncle of an adolescent killed by police throughout an anti-drug operation in August 2017 within the Manila metropolis, advised The Related Press.
“Now we really feel that justice is rolling. We hope that high police officers and the a whole bunch of law enforcement officials who had been concerned within the unlawful killings also needs to be positioned in custody and punished,” delos Santos mentioned.
Three of the law enforcement officials who killed his nephew, Kian delos Santos, had been convicted in 2018 for the high-profile homicide, which prompted to Duterte on the time to briefly droop his brutal anti-drugs crackdown.
The conviction was one in every of at the very least three, to this point, in opposition to legislation enforcers concerned within the anti-drugs marketing campaign, reflecting the considerations of households of victims of suspected extrajudicial killings that they’d not get justice within the Philippines, therefore, their determination to hunt the assistance of the ICC.
It was not instantly clear the place Duterte was taken by the police. The federal government mentioned the 79-year-old former chief was in good well being.
The ICC started investigating drug killings below Duterte from Nov. 1, 2011, when he was nonetheless mayor of the southern metropolis of Davao, to March 16, 2019, as potential crimes in opposition to humanity. Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the Rome Statute in a transfer human rights activists say was aimed toward escaping accountability.
The Duterte administration moved to droop the worldwide court docket’s investigation in late 2021 by arguing that Philippine authorities had been already wanting into the identical allegations, arguing the ICC — a court docket of final resort — did not have jurisdiction.
Appeals judges on the ICC dominated in 2023 the investigation may resume and rejected the Duterte administration’s objections. Primarily based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the ICC can step in when nations are unwilling or unable to prosecute suspects in probably the most heinous worldwide crimes, together with genocide, conflict crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who succeeded Duterte in 2022 and have become entangled in a bitter political dispute with the previous president, has determined to not rejoin the worldwide court docket. However the Marcos administration has mentioned it could cooperate if the ICC asks worldwide police to take Duterte into custody by means of a so-called Pink Discover, a request for legislation enforcement businesses worldwide to find and briefly arrest a criminal offense suspect.
