Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 21) — A lawyer on Tuesday said arresting officials of an international tribunal investigating the Duterte administration’s drug war would be illegal and groundless.
“The Philippines cannot say the arrest would be on any ground or just on the ground that they will be in the Philippines. That will be illegal and unjust,” Kristina Conti, who is also an assistant to counsel at the International Criminal Court (ICC), told CNN Philippines’ The Source.
In 2018, then President Rodrigo Duterte warned he would arrest then ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda if she conducts activities in the Philippines. He said the court has no jurisdiction since Manila is no longer a member of the ICC.
Duterte announced the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC in 2018, which took effect in 2019.
Conti said arresting the ICC personnel \”would be covered by one of the sections of the Rome Statute that would be crimes against the administration of justice.\”
\”You’re threatening investigators of a judicial body,\” she added.
Whether there will be trumped up charges or any politicization of the move of the ICC, the claim that the Philippine government can arrest ICC officials amid their investigation is baseless, Conti said.
Earlier this month, Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said that if he were to decide, he would have the ICC personnel arrested if they set foot in the country following the decision of the court to resume its investigation into the war against illegal drugs.
Sen. Bato dela Rosa, a former national police chief mentioned in the ICC report, agreed, saying it would be a “clear intrusion of our sovereignty.”
A number of lawmakers filed a resolution calling to defend Duterte from the probe.
