INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will be arrested if she comes to the Philippines and proceeds with the preliminary investigation into the anti-narcotics war, President Rodrigo Duterte warned today.
Duterte told a press conference in Manila that Bensouda should not bother trying to enter Philippine territory, as she would not succeed.
He said he would not hesitate to order Bensouda’s arrest upon her arrival. He reiterated that the ICC no longer has jurisdiction over him since the Philippine government had pulled out its membership from the treaty that created the court. “Ms. Fatou, do not go here because I will bar you, not because I am afraid of you (but) because you will never have jurisdiction over my person, not in a million years,”
On March 14, the government released Duterte’s statement about the Philippines’s “immediate” termination of its membership as a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC. Duterte decided to repeal the Philippines’ ratification of the treaty because of what he termed the ICC’s purported “brazen display of ignorance of the law”, for claiming jurisdiction over his person. Despite the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC, the international court has continued with its preliminary examination of the supposed human right violations associated with Duterte’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs.
The initial review that began last February stemmed from the 77-page communication lodged by legal counsel Jude Sabio, accusing Duterte of committing crimes against humanity for allegedly inciting the killings of drug personalities in the Philippines. Duterte maintained that he would not be unfazed by the “nonsense” examination of the ICC in the war he waged against rampant narcotics sale.
According to ICC rules, a signatory country also cannot be discharged of any cases already pending in the court before the withdrawal.
According to Philippines police reports, 3,967 “drug users and dealers were killed during police operations between July 1, 2016, and November 27, 2017.
But an opposition senator said the death toll in the drug war was more than that since President Rodrigo Duterte came to office on June 30, 2016.
Image Credit: ISAAC LAWRENCE / AFP