SENATOR Antonio Trillanes IV and Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary C. Alejano on Tuesday filed a supplemental complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In a 45-page communication submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC, Trillanes and Alejano provided updates to the submitted communication of lawyer Jude Sabio before the ICC regarding Duterte’s alleged violation of the Articles of Rome Statute by committing summary executions that constituted crimes against humanity as a result of his war on illegal drugs.
Trillanes claimed that the case against Duterte was very solid. He said Duterte repeatedly, explicitly and clearly pronounced a national policy of killing drug suspects and the Philippine National Police executed it.
Trillanes and Alejano also included in the communication the list of killings that they said transpired after the first communication to the ICC was submitted on April 24 by Sabio.
They said they also included other relevant incidents that proved that the killings happening around the country were being done systematically by the police through the so-called legitimate police operations, or through vigilante-style executions, which were carried out by the police themselves, as part of vigilante groups or through their hired killers.
Alejano said the abruptly terminated Senate hearings on the executions plus Duterte’s immunity from suit proved that the government was unwilling and unable to prosecute the perpetrators of the crimes.
“Therefore, there is still a continuing veil of impunity which enables the carrying out of state-sponsored killings,” Alejano said.
“It is in this regard that we are calling on the ICC to intervene and conduct a preliminary examination of the situation in the country in order to prevent further extrajudicial killings and render justice in the country.”
The Rome Statute is the treaty that established the ICC, the first permanent international court that is capable of trying perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression, the Statute’s four core international crimes.
The Philippines is a state party to the Rome Statute together with 123 other state parties after ratifying it in August 2011.
