Charge Duterte with mass murder, lawyer tells The Hague
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A Filipino lawyer asked the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Monday to charge President Rodrigo Duterte and 11 other Philippine officials with mass murder and crimes against humanity in the killings of thousands of people over three decades.
The lawyer, Jude Josue Sabio, said in a 77-page complaint that Duterte was the “mastermind” of a campaign that has killed more than 9,400 people, mostly poor young men, since 1988, when Duterte was first elected mayor of Davao City in the southern Philippines.
“The situation in the Philippines reveals a terrifying, gruesome and disastrous continuing commission of extrajudicial executions or mass murder from the time President Duterte was the mayor of Davao City,” the complaint says.
Sabio represents two men who say they were paid assassins for Duterte when he was mayor of Davao City but filed the case on his own. The court has the authority to accept cases brought by individuals as well as by nations and the U.N. Security Council.
Duterte was elected president last year after pledging to kill criminals as part of what he called a war on drugs. Since taking office in June, he has repeatedly urged police to kill suspects and has promised to protect or pardon police officers who are prosecuted.
According to police statistics, more than 4,000 people have been killed by police in anti-drug operations or by vigilantes in drug-related cases since Duterte became president. Sabio’s complaint puts that number at more than 8,000.
In addition, the complaint cites the killings of more than 1,400 people who Sabio and rights advocates say were killed over 28 years in Duterte’s anti-crime campaign in Davao City.
The complaint also names Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre; the national police chief, Ronald dela Rosa; House of Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez; and two senators, Peter Cayetano and Richard Gordon.