The International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking additional witnesses for its investigation into former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, ICC Assistant to Counsel Maria Kristina Conti said.
Conti added that the ICC’s inquiry into the alleged crimes against humanity in Duterte’s anti-drug campaign is still progressing. She said that the court has already obtained “core witnesses.”
Reports said thousands of suspected drug pushers and addicts were killed in police operations under Duterte’s anti-illegal drugs campaign.
The government earlier said it will no longer engage the ICC, which the Philippines left in 2019, and is no longer bound to assist the court.
But the government also said it will not stop the ICC from setting up interviews and gathering data on the so-called drug war, where at least 6,000 supposed drug personalities were killed in operations acknowledged by law enforcement, ABS-CBN News reported.
“We are confident that the ICC has already secured witnesses, but it is looking for additional information, like a ‘smoking gun’ or other witnesses who want to testify. The ICC has talked to a lot of people and the investigation is ongoing, “ Conti, quoted by ABS-CBN News, said.
Aside from Duterte, an ICC document has named Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, Duterte’s police chief who implemented the drug war, along with former Philippine National Police officials Oscar Albayalde, Edilberto Leonardo, Eleazar Mata, and former Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief, now Northern Luzon commander, Maj. Gen. Romeo Caramat Jr., as “suspects.”
Duterte and Dela Rosa earlier they are willing to face complaints and cases in Philippine courts but that they do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Four committees of the House of Representatives are investigating issues related to the Duterte administration, including illegal offshore gaming hubs and extrajudicial killings during the violent anti-drug campaign.
While a co-chair of the quad committee said they won’t submit the results of their investigation to the ICC since the Philippines has withdrawn ratification of the Rome Statute that created the body, anyone cal still use their findings.
Earlier a pre-trial chamber of the ICC authorized the court’s prosecutor to resume an investigation into the situation in the Philippines.
The investigation covers alleged crimes committed from November 2011 to June 2016, including the large number of extrajudicial killings in Davao City while former president Duterte was its mayor as well as in other parts the country during his presidency up until March 16, 2019, a day before the Philippines’ withdrawlfrom the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, took effect.
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