Philippine ex-president Duterte is heading to The Hague to face ICC charges linked to 'war on drugs'

A general view of the exterior of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was being flown to the Netherlands on Wednesday 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 Tuesday 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. The court didn’t 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.

“This is a monumental and long-overdue step for justice for thousands of victims and their families,” said Jerrie Abella of Amnesty International.

“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,” Abella added.

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.

Duterte’s supporters, however, criticized 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 investigation

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.

What happens next?

Within days of being taken into custody at the court’s detention center, Duterte will be taken to court for a hearing. Judges will confirm his identity, check that he understands the charges against him and set a date for a hearing known as a confirmation of charges at which a panel of pretrial judges will assess if prosecutors have sufficient evidence to merit sending him to a full trial.

Duterte could challenge the court’s jurisdiction and the admissibility of the case. While the Philippines is no longer a member of the ICC, the alleged crimes happened before Manila withdrew from the court.

That process will likely take months and if the case progresses to trial it could take years. Duterte will be able to apply for provisional release from the court’s detention center while he waits, though it’s up to judges to decide whether to grant such a request.

Duterte’s legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, told reporters in Manila that the Philippine Supreme Court “can compel the government to bring back the person arrested and detained without probable cause and compel the government bring him before the court and to explain to them why they (government) did what they did.”

Marcos said Tuesday that Duterte’s arrest was “proper and correct” and not an act of political persecution.

Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, criticized the Marcos administration for surrendering her father to a foreign court which currently has no jurisdiction to the Philippines.

The Philippines is no longer a member state of the ICC

Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the ICC, in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability.

The Duterte administration moved to suspend the global court’s investigation in late 2021 by arguing that Philippine authorities were already looking into the same allegations, arguing that the ICC — a court of last resort — therefore didn’t have jurisdiction.

Appeals judges at the ICC rejected those arguments and ruled in 2023 that the investigation could resume.

The ICC judges who issued the warrant also said that the alleged crimes fall within the court’s jurisdiction. They said Duterte’s arrest was necessary because of what they called the “risk of interference with the investigations and the security of witnesses and victims.”

___

Aleksandar Furtula in The Hague, Joeal Calupitan and Basilio Sepe in Manila, Philippines, and Jerry Harmer in Bangkok, contributed to this report.

Mike Corder, The Associated Press