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February 11, 2018
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MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte is “very confident” the International Criminal Court will not go beyond its preliminary examination of the supposed “crimes against humanity” linked to the government’s war on drugs.
The ICC Office of the Prosecutor has announced that it would open preliminary examinations into alleged crimes by police and security forces in the Philippines and Venezuela.
“He (Duterte) is very confident that the prosecutor will not go beyond a preliminary examination,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said in a news conference in Camarines Sur.
Philip Alston, a former United Nations special rapporteur on extralegal killings, had cleared Duterte of any possible criminal liability over the works of the so-called “Davao Death Squad,” Roque pointed out.
“The most that…Alston recommended then was [a] criminal charge for simple negligence against the police,” he said.
Duterte “is confident that, at most, … the finding would be similar to the finding of Philip Alston that sometimes – not all the time – police appear to be negligent in conducting the war against drugs,” Roque added.
The presidential spokesman reiterated that Duterte welcomes the preliminary examination as a “chance to clear his name from accusations that he is guilty of extralegal killings.”
In addition, Roque insisted that the basis of the Philippines’ consent to become an ICC member was the principle of complementarity.
This means the ICC can only claim jurisdiction over cases of crimes against humanity if the state fails to investigate them, he said.
“Our domestic courts are able and willing to prosecute these crimes. The ICC is only a court of last resort,” said Roque.
Moreover, the deaths attributed to the war on drugs are “because of lawful police operations and cannot therefore constitute an attack against civilians, which is required in crimes against humanity,” he said. (PNA)
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