{"id":58317,"date":"2018-02-08T06:12:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T06:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=58317"},"modified":"2018-02-08T06:12:59","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T06:12:59","slug":"philippines-says-icc-examining-complaint-against-duterte-over-drug-war-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/philippines-says-icc-examining-complaint-against-duterte-over-drug-war-deaths.html","title":{"rendered":"Philippines says ICC examining complaint against Duterte over drug war deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Philippines says ICC examining complaint against Duterte over drug war deaths<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The International Criminal Court (ICC) has informed the Philippines that it has begun a preliminary examination of a complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte that accuses him of crimes against humanity, his spokesman said on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The examination of the complaint, which says Duterte is complicit in the illegal deaths of thousands of Filipinos during his war on drugs, was \u201ca waste of the court\u2019s time and resources\u201d, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Roque told a regular news briefing that he had discussed the issue for two hours the previous night with Duterte, a former prosecutor, who he said was more than willing to face trial.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">\u201cHe\u2019s sick and tried of being accused,\u201d said Roque, a former Congressman and international law expert.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">\u201cHe wants to be in court and put the prosecutor on the stand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The ICC\u2019s website carried no announcement or information on Thursday concerning the complaint against Duterte. The court\u2019s office could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">About 4,000 mostly urban poor Filipinos have been killed by police in the past 19 months in a brutal crackdown that has alarmed the international community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Duterte has many times dared the ICC to bring him to trial and said he was willing to rot in jail to save Filipinos from the scourge of crime and drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">His tirades against the court are notorious, and include calling it \u201cbullshit\u201d, \u201chypocritical\u201d and \u201cuseless\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">He has threatened to withdraw his country\u2019s ICC membership and said lawyers in Europe were \u201crotten\u201d, \u201cstupid\u201d, and had a \u201cbrain like a pea\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Police say those thousands of killings were during legitimate anti-drugs operations in which the suspects had violently resisted arrest. Duterte has repeatedly told police they can kill if their lives are in danger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">But human rights groups and Duterte\u2019s political opponents accuse him of inciting murder and say he refuses to investigate allegations that police are planting evidence, fabricating reports and executing users and dealers in cold blood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Duterte and the police deny those accusations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">A Philippines lawyer filed the ICC complaint against Duterte and at least 11 senior officials in April last year, saying crimes against humanity were committed \u201crepeatedly, unchangingly and continuously\u201d and killing drug suspects and other criminals had become \u201cbest practice\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Since it was established in 2002, the ICC has received over 12,000 complaints or communications, nine of which have gone to trial.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Roque said \u201cdomestic enemies of the state\u201d were behind the complaint and the ICC had no jurisdiction when it came to the war on drugs, which was a sovereign issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Pending cases in the Philippine courts showed that domestic legal processes had not been exhausted, so the ICC would have no justification to go beyond its preliminary examination, he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-philippines-drugs-icct\/philippines-says-icc-examining-complaint-against-duterte-over-drug-war-deaths-idUSKBN1FS0KU<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/philippines-says-icc-examining-complaint-against-duterte-over-drug-war-deaths.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philippines says ICC examining complaint against Duterte over drug war deaths The International Criminal Court (ICC) has informed the Philippines that it has begun a preliminary examination of a complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte that accuses him of crimes against humanity, his spokesman said on Thursday. The examination of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":58326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5470],"tags":[118782,8775,2489,118058],"class_list":["post-58317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-philippines-says-icc-examining-complaint-against-duterte-over-drug-war-deaths","tag-world-news-daily","tag-world-news-today","tag-world-news-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}