Du30 lawyers seek more time to firm up ICC release bid
The request for the interim release of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte from detention in The Hague, the Netherlands, has hit a snag when his own lawyers requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) to suspend ruling on his petition filed a month earlier.
The July 18 request asked the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber 1 (PCI) to suspend the “adjudication” of the release petition “until such time as the Defence has assembled all information necessary.”
Duterte has been held at the ICC detention facility in The Hague, the Netherlands, since March 12 following his arrest in Manila the previous day.
He has been charged with murder as a crime against humanity in connection with his administration’s war on drugs which killed thousands from November 2011 when he was still Mayor of Davao City to March 2019 after his order to withdraw Manila from the Rome Treaty, which established the ICC, took effect.
On June 12, Duterte’s counsel Nicholas Kaufman appealed for the former president’s interim release, saying an undisclosed government expressed “advance and principled agreement” to receive him.
However, in its July 18 request, which was heavily redacted, Kaufman claimed the defense had been “slow-walked and stymied” since May and that some “results” had only been provided to them “a few days ago.”
He said that the prosecution “mischaracterized” an undisclosed material as “incomplete and should not consequently be relied upon” as basis to back the defence’s request for Duterte’s interim release.
“A highly prejudicial situation has thus been created, by which Mr. Duterte is unable to challenge a Prosecution assertion,” Kaufman argued.
“As a matter of fairness, therefore, the Pre-Trial Chamber must receive all pertinent information on [redacted] before rendering its decision, especially since [redacted] can be of relevance to interim release,” he added.
Kaufman underscored the urgency of the new request, noting that applications for interim release were “typically encouraged” to be decided within 30 days.
Request opposed
The ICC prosecutor opposed the defense’s request, saying that the “mischaracterized” material was “expressly stated” as incomplete when it first came out and that the PCI confirmed it.
It said that the defense found itself in that situation “entirely due” to its decision to file the request for interim release “prematurely.”
“The Defence has not been ‘prejudiced,'” the prosecution said.
The defense’s stance that “vital information” relevant to the release request will be obtained “when completed,” was “speculative,” it added.
“The Defence submitted that the issue of interim release needed to be resolved urgently, to the extent that it requested that the Chamber reduce the Prosecution’s time limit to respond. In a complete reversal, the Defense now asks the Chamber, again on an urgent basis, not to rule on its Request for Interim Release,” the prosecution noted.
“It should not now be entitled to delay the adjudication of this matter simply so that it can supplement its original submission,” it argued.
Age ‘compelling’ ground
Much of the submissions by the defense and the prosecution to the PCI was redacted, giving little indication as to what materials or information they were pertaining to or arguing about.
But in their original petition for Duterte’s release, his lawyers led by Kaufman cited his advanced age (80 years) as a “compelling” humanitarian ground for his temporary freedom.
His family and supporters also pointed to his frail health and that he was losing weight in detention.
His lawyers said the former president was no longer the country’s head of state and would not command the same influence he had when he was the nation’s leader.
He is not a flight risk and had promised to refrain from “public engagement” and communication outside his family, they added.
