Former President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte speaks contained in the Southorn Stadium throughout a thanksgiving gathering organized by Hong Kong-based Filipino employees for the previous populist president in Hong Kong on March 9, 2025.
Vernon Yuen/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
Vernon Yuen/AP
MANILA, Philippines — Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila’s worldwide airport Tuesday on order of the Worldwide Felony Court docket in reference to a case of crime towards humanity filed towards him, the Philippine authorities mentioned.
Duterte was arrested after arriving from Hong Kong and police took him into custody on orders of the ICC, which has been investigating the mass killings that occurred beneath the previous president’s lethal crackdown towards unlawful medication, President Ferdinand Marcos’ workplace mentioned in an announcement.
“Upon his arrival, the prosecutor general served the ICC notification for an arrest warrant to the former president for the crime of crime against humanity,” the federal government mentioned. “He’s now in the custody of authorities.”
The shock arrest sparked a commotion on the airport, the place legal professionals and aides of Duterte loudly protested that they, together with a health care provider and legal professionals, have been prevented from coming near him after he was taken into police custody. “This is a violation of his constitutional right,” Sen. Bong Go, an in depth Duterte ally. advised reporters.
Duterte’s arrest and downfall surprised and drove households of the victims of his bloody crackdowns towards unlawful medication to tears.
A supporter of former President Rodrigo Duterte reacts upon discovering out he was arrested, on the airport in Manila, Philippines, Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
Aaron Favila/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
Aaron Favila/AP
“This is a big, long-awaited day for justice,” Randy delos Santos, the uncle of a youngster killed by police throughout an anti-drug operation in August 2017 within the Manila metropolis, advised The Related Press.
“Now we feel that justice is rolling. We hope that top police officials and the hundreds of police officers who were involved in the illegal killings should also be placed in custody and punished,” delos Santos mentioned.
Three of the cops who killed his nephew, Kian delos Santos, have been convicted in 2018 for the high-profile homicide, which prompted to Duterte on the time to briefly droop his brutal anti-drugs crackdown.
The conviction was one in all a minimum of three, to date, towards legislation enforcers concerned within the anti-drugs marketing campaign, reflecting the issues of households of victims of suspected extrajudicial killings that they’d not get justice within the Philippines, therefore, their determination to hunt the assistance of the ICC.
It was not instantly clear the place Duterte was taken by the police. The federal government mentioned the 79-year-old former chief was in good well being.
The ICC started investigating drug killings beneath Duterte from Nov. 1, 2011, when he was nonetheless mayor of the southern metropolis of Davao, to March 16, 2019, as attainable crimes towards humanity. Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the Rome Statute in a transfer human rights activists say was aimed toward escaping accountability.
The Duterte administration moved to droop the worldwide courtroom’s investigation in late 2021 by arguing that Philippine authorities have been already wanting into the identical allegations, arguing the ICC — a courtroom of final resort — did not have jurisdiction.
Appeals judges on the ICC dominated in 2023 the investigation might resume and rejected the Duterte administration’s objections. Based mostly in The Hague, the Netherlands, the ICC can step in when nations are unwilling or unable to prosecute suspects in probably the most heinous worldwide crimes, together with genocide, battle crimes and crimes towards humanity.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who succeeded Duterte in 2022 and have become entangled in a bitter political dispute with the previous president, has determined to not rejoin the worldwide courtroom. However the Marcos administration has mentioned it will cooperate if the ICC asks worldwide police to take Duterte into custody by means of a so-called Crimson Discover, a request for legislation enforcement businesses worldwide to find and briefly arrest against the law suspect.
