Rody Duterte’s Case To Proceed ‘Sooner’ – ICC Prosecutor

Despite several challenges to the ongoing proceedings, a deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) expects the case against former president Rodrigo Duterte to proceed to confirmation hearings “sooner than previous cases.”

Although the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I postponed Duterte’s confirmation of charges hearing originally scheduled on Sept. 23, ICC deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang is expecting it to push through in the coming months.

“It is likely that this case will still proceed to the hearing on the confirmation of charges sooner than previous cases before this Court,” Niang wrote in a filing dated Sept. 29.

He provided reasons for this projection, but these details were redacted in the public version of the filing.

The ICC deputy prosecutor cited two cases wherein the confirmation of charges hearing took about a year since the first appearance hearings of the suspects.

Duterte’s first appearance before the tribunal was on March 14, days after he was arrested in the Philippines and turned over to the ICC. He has been detained at the ICC Detention Center in The Hague.

Niang was responding to the defense’s recent assertion that Duterte should be granted interim release while proceedings for his fitness are underway.

The ICC deputy prosecutor maintained that “Duterte, if granted interim release, would be a flight risk, is likely to interfere with the proceedings, and may commit further crimes.”

He accused the defense, led by Nicholas Kaufman, of “unnecessarily (delaying) the proceedings by waiting until five months after Mr. Duterte’s initial appearance… to file its challenge regarding his fitness to stand trial,” said the deputy ICC prosecutor.

Last August, Kaufman claimed that the former president was unfit to stand trial and sought to terminate the proceedings.

But Niang noted that Duterte, in the five months since his arrest, was capable of providing his lawyers with instruction to file various pleadings, including a challenge to ICC’s jurisdiction and a move to disqualify two of the three pre-trial judges handling the proceedings.

These instances, he said, contradict claims that Duterte is unfit to stand trial and that his fitness has been an issue since his initial appearance in March.

The Office of the Public Counsel for Victims also opposed the request, saying nothing in the defense filings alleviate the risks previously outlined by the victims.

In addition to being “procedurally improper,” the OPCV said allowing interim release “would become unreasonably cumbersome and undoubtedly add extensive delays and disproportionate costs.”

“Mr. Duterte is detained for cogent reasons in accordance with the criteria set out in the applicable articles and rules (or statutory instruments). These reasons have been laid out in detail by both the Prosecution and the OPCV,” the counsel representing the victims said.

“None of these reasons has changed. There thus exists no basis for the Chamber to release Mr. Duterte pending the confirmation of charges against him,” added the OPCV.