Aircraft loading former Philippine President Duterte to ICC delays, flight tracker shows
ROTERDAM (Reuters) – The plane that brought Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court in The Hague was postponed on Wednesday after the former Philippine leader was arrested in Manila.
The plane was originally set to land at Rotterdam Airport around 0600 GMT, but tracking service Flighttradar 24 showed it in Dubai and later arrived in the Netherlands, unidentified.
Duterte, a maverick former couple, former prosecutor who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, was arrested earlier on Tuesday, the biggest step in the ICC's investigation into alleged crimes against humanity, killing thousands of people and being condemned worldwide in anti-drug calm.
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Sara Duterte, the daughter of the country's vice president, said in a statement that his daughter boarded a morning flight to Amsterdam, but that was not what she intended to do there or how long she planned to stay in the Netherlands.
Broadcasting firm ABS-CBN News said Duterte was receiving medical care during his stopover in Dubai. ABS-CBN shows on its website what it says is the content of police doctors checking Duterte while lying on the airplane tool.
The ICC's press office declined to comment. A Duterte lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in Dubai did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Duterte, 79, may become the first former head of state in Asia to be tried at the ICC.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos JR said at a press conference Tuesday that the plane carrying Duterte said on his way to The Hague that it would put the former president “face charges of crimes against humanity related to his bloody war on drugs.”
The War on Drugs is the signature campaign platform that brought Mercurial Duterte to the stage in 2016. During his six years in office, police were charged with killing 6,200 suspects during anti-drug operations.
But the real loss is much greater, with thousands of slum drug addicts shooting in mysterious circumstances after signing up for treatment, some on the community’s “watch list.”
Silvestre Bello, former labor minister and one of the president's lawyers, said the legal team will meet to assess the option and to know where Duterte is and whether he can be granted access to him.
His former chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo said Duterte’s youngest daughter Veronica plans to file a habeas truce request to the Philippines’ Supreme Court to force the government to bring him back.
(Reported by Bart Meijer, Anthony Deutsch, Karen Lema; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
