Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is being flown to the Netherlands to face an International Criminal Court charge of crimes against humanity linked to the deadly crackdown on drugs he oversaw while in office.
The 79-year-old Duterte’s arrest on a warrant issued by the global court was hailed by human rights groups and families of victims as a major breakthrough and step toward ending impunity.
Flight tracking data showed that after leaving Manila, the jet carrying Duterte waited for hours in Dubai before taking off again, apparently headed for Rotterdam The Hague Airport.
Duterte will face justice at The Hague (AP)
The court did not immediately comment on the flight, but Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said Tuesday that police arrested Duterte when he returned from a trip to Hong Kong and sent him to the ICC.
When he arrives in the Netherlands, he will be taken to the court’s detention unit inside a Dutch prison complex near the North Sea coast.
Rights groups and families of victims welcomed the arrest.
Jerrie Abella of Amnesty International said: “This is a monumental and long-overdue step for justice for thousands of victims and their families.
“It is therefore a hopeful sign for them, as well, in the Philippines and beyond, as it shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, will face justice wherever they are in the world.”
Emily Soriano, the mother of a victim of the crackdowns, said she wanted more officials to face justice.
“Duterte is lucky he has due process, but our children who were killed did not have due process,” she said.
The plane carrying Rodrigo Duterte to The Hague took off from Manila earlier (AP)
Duterte’s supporters, however, criticised his arrest as illegal and sought to have him returned home. Small groups of Duterte supporters and people who backed his arrest demonstrated on Wednesday outside the court before his arrival.
The ICC opened an inquiry in 2021 into mass killings linked to the so-called war on drugs overseen by Duterte when he served as mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao, and later as president.
Estimates of the death toll during Duterte’s presidential term vary, from the more than 6,000 that the national police have reported and up to 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.
ICC judges who looked at prosecution evidence supporting their request for his arrest found “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Duterte is individually responsible for the crime against humanity of murder” as an “indirect co-perpetrator for having allegedly overseen the killings when he was mayor of Davao and later president of the Philippines,” according to his warrant.