Du30 lawyers raise concerns over prosecution microsite
The defense lawyers of former President Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court (ICC) are calling for the stricter authentication of prosecution evidence that came from open source materials, as his trial for alleged crimes against humanity draws near.
According to a document released on Friday, Peter Haynes, Duterte’s lead counsel, asked the ICC’s Trial Chamber III to amend the “E-Court Protocol,” the court’s electronic system, by adding an “expert verification field” for the listing of items to be cited as evidence.
The move was made ahead of the trial which starts Nov. 30.
‘New challenge’
Haynes noted that the microsite created by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), called “OTPLink” with the URL appeals.icc-cpi.int, for the anonymous submission of materials created a “new challenge” for the defense as it was supposedly vulnerable to tampering.
The prosecution launched the microsite in December 2024 to call for more witnesses and more documentary evidence when Duterte’s case was still at the pretrial stage. It encourages past and present police officers and other members of law enforcement agencies to come forward virtually and help in the investigation of the killings during Duterte’s war on drugs.
“There is also the obvious danger that nefarious actors will use the system to transmit falsified, manipulated, or forged evidence, which might also be circulated online; a risk identified by the Office of the Prosecutor itself,” the defense said in the document dated Aug. 31.
“[W]ith three months until the start of trial, the defense is deeply concerned that the quality and quantity of the evidence in this case risks flooding the record with unreliable and/or irrelevant material. This would be detrimental for the parties and the chamber’s search for the truth, and reputationally damaging for the court,” it noted.
