Du30’s next hope is to suspend trial—if docs find him unfit
With his request for temporary liberty rejected, medical specialists tapped to assess the condition of former President Rodrigo Duterte will soon report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) whether to affirm his legal team’s contention that he’s no longer mentally and physically fit to face trial.
According to Kristina Conti of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, the three doctors making up the panel of experts are expected to submit their findings to the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) I on Dec. 5.
“The experts’ opinion about his fitness to stand trial will come out next week… Dec. 5 is the deadline for three independent panel of experts, independent, to say, is he still able to understand what is happening and is he able to answer the questions,” Conti said on Friday night, after the ICC Appeals Chamber rejected Duterte’s bid for interim release on humanitarian grounds.
The five-member Appeals Chamber unanimously affirmed the Sept. 26 ruling of PTC I that kept the 80-year-old Duterte in detention.
By Dec. 12, parties to the case should be able to submit to the PTC I their comments and observations on the medical findings.
The chamber’s decision on the panel’s findings, however, may have to wait till January next year, as it is suspending session on Dec. 12.
With Friday’s rejection of his appeal, Duterte will remain at the ICC detention facility at the Scheveningen prison complex in The Hague, the Netherlands, where he was charged with three counts of murder as a crime against humanity for more than 49 killings in his so-called war on drugs.
The appeals judges maintained that the defense “failed to demonstrate” that the PTC I “erred in law and in fact” in rejecting Duterte’s temporary liberty.
Reacting to the decision, lead defense counsel Nicholas Kaufman conceded that the Appeals Chamber had never agreed to an interim release of an individual accused of crimes against humanity. But Kaufman noted that it would study how his aging client could still be released on account of his “debilitating” condition.
“The Defense awaits the results of the medical evaluation of the former President due next month and will reintroduce its request to release a man who is 80 years old and, as a result of debilitating physical and cognitive conditions, is incapable of flight or, as alleged, threats to witnesses,” he told the Inquirer.
PDP fumes
Meanwhile, Duterte’s party, the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), issued a statement on Saturday lambasting the ICC Appeals Chamber’s decision.
“It has decided that Duterte will be its whipping boy, aided and abetted by the present weak and compliant Philippine government itself in need of something to divert attention away from massive corruption scandals and systemic failure of governance,” PDP-Laban said.
“As the ICC continues to experience a crisis of credibility and confidence around the world for its double standards, its decidedly liberal woke orientation, demonstrable bias against Asian and African states and financial and moral scandals involving several of its key officials, it desperately needed a trophy to bolster its sagging fortunes,” said the statement written by lawyer Ferdinand Topacio.
The Duterte-chaired party said it would continue to pray for “favorable outcomes,” noting his pending request for an “indefinite adjournment” of all pretrial proceedings due to his “cognitive impairment in multiple domains,” referring to his mental condition.
On Friday, Conti reiterated Duterte, unlike the people marked on mere suspicion and summarily killed during his antidrug crackdown, enjoys the benefits of the Netherlands’ universal health-care system while in ICC custody.
“Duterte is still lucky compared to our situation. [If we] don’t have money, we can’t get ourselves checked. People can’t help but wonder, the one who is detained, the one who did the crime, is the one being treated like a baby,” she said, addressing the family members of those killed in the drug war, during a “watch party” organized for the appeals chamber’s decision.
