MANILA, Philippines — The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has asked Interpol to put out an alert on five former ranking police officials, including an incumbent senator, suspected to be involved in the Duterte administration’s deadly anti-narcotics campaign.
Antonio Trillanes IV, a former opposition senator who filed the case at the Hague-based court, said ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan has pushed for the “blue notice” against Sen. Ronald dela Rosa and four others.
“Along with providing this document to the Philippine government, the ICC also made a request to Interpol to include these five individuals in the ‘blue notice’,” Trillanes said in Filipino on Wednesday in an ambush interview with reporters at the Department of Justice.
Trillanes was referring to the document from the ICC where Dela Rosa, former president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief of police and executor of the so-called drug war, is officially placed “under suspicion.”
Alongside Dela Rosa, the following were also named suspects for crimes against humanity over the thousands of Filipinos killed for alleged involvement in the drug trade:
- Oscar Albayalde, former chief of police
- Romero Caramat Jr., former chief of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group
- Edilberto Leonardo, former commissioner of the National Police Commission
- Eleazar Mata, former PNP chief intelligence officer
The five named suspects were first revealed by Trillanes on July 28. The document from the international tribunal state former officials of the Philippine National Police were responsible for the ordering of killings of drug suspects and “users” from 2011 to 2019.
What a blue notice does
A blue notice “would allow them to be held at various immigration counters in any country they attempt to enter or exit,” Trillanes said.
On its website, Interpol explains that the notice, when issued, is used to “collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.”
Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said, however, that his office has yet to receive information about the Interpol notice.
On Tuesday, Guevarra said the Philippine government would not stop the ICC from interviewing the drug war suspects.
On Sept. 15, 2021, the ICC’s pre-trial chamber granted the ICC prosecutor permission to investigate alleged crimes committed during the drug war from Nov. 1, 2011 to to March 16, 2019.
The Philippine government subsequently requested for the ICC to defer its investigation within the country, but the international tribunal refused.
This led the government to appeal the decision, but the ICC again rejected the appeal on July 18, allowing the prosecutor to proceed with the investigation.
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