ON MARCH 11, the unbelievable happened: the once greatly feared former president Rodrigo Duterte, allegedly the mastermind of the Davao Death Squad and the brutal war on illegal drugs, stepped off a plane at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and, to his shock, was promptly arrested.
There is one man who can make accused perpetrators of crimes against humanity, mass murder and genocide shiver with fear, and that is Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, KC, the powerful and determined prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was the one who requested the warrant of arrest for Duterte that was issued by the ICC and served by the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, and the Philippine National Police.
After his arrest, Duterte was taken to nearby Villamor Air Base, where this formerly powerful and feared man — accused of mass murder and crimes against humanity — was held in custody for the first time in his life.
“What is my sin?” he asked.
To get his answer, he was flown to The Hague in the Netherlands, where the ICC is headquartered, several hours later. A pre-trial chamber hearing was already held.
Khan, who specializes in international criminal law, said the atrocities Duterte was said to have committed involved “the crime against humanity of murder (Article 7(1)(a) of the Rome Statute) committed in the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019.”
“Mr. Duterte is alleged to have committed these crimes as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
The unexpected arrest of Duterte has surely brought relief and some small comfort and hope that justice might yet be delivered to the thousands of families of the thousands of people summarily executed on his orders, first when he was mayor of Davao City and later as president.
Human rights advocates and researchers allege that as many as 30,000 persons in all were murdered by police, assassins and bounty hunters — all well-paid with government funds for killing small-time suspects for peddling drugs in Duterte’s drug war. The illegal-drug barons and traffickers were untouched.
Duterte’s case is already in the pre-trial phase. The prosecutor must show that it has sufficient evidence to commit the case to trial. At this stage, the judges will have to decide whether to confirm, decline or review the charges presented by the Office of the Prosecutor against the defendant. If the judges confirm the charges, the case goes to trial.
Once at trial, the prosecutor will be the first to present his case, and bears the burden of proof that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt, the court notice said. The presentation of evidence will then begin. (To be continued)/PN
