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According to Salvador Panelo, former spokesperson for the Philippines’ president, the extradition violated both the country’s laws and the ICC’s regulations.
Salvador Panelo, Rodrigo Duterte’s former chief legal counsel and spokesperson, told RT that the former Philippine president’s detention and extradition violated the country’s laws.
Duterte was arrested at Manila’s airport, detained, and transported to The Hague, where the ICC took him into custody on Wednesday. He is accused of committing crimes against humanity during his anti-drug campaign from 2016 to 2022.
Panelo stated in an interview with RT on Friday that the former president was “arrested without a warrant,” taken to Villamor Air Base in the Philippines, and “detained there illegally.”
The former presidential legal aide emphasized, “From our point of view, that was an illegal arrest, an illegal detention, and that was kidnapping.”
Panelo added that the arrest warrant originated from a “spurious” source that “as far as this country is concerned…has no jurisdiction.”
The Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, in 2019 under Duterte’s presidency and is therefore no longer a member.
Panelo stressed that under Philippine law, any foreign arrest warrant must be processed through a local court.
He also stated that according to the Rome Statute, when the ICC seeks an arrest warrant, it “has to be referred to the state member and it has to pass through a judicial authority, and that was not done.”
Panelo believes Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, could be the target of a similar warrant in the future to prevent her from running in the 2028 presidential election.
Last month, an escalating conflict between Sara Duterte and current President Bongbong Marcos resulted in impeachment proceedings against the former.
Panelo said that Rodrigo Duterte’s efforts against illegal drug trafficking “stopped criminality, reduced it to the barest minimum,” earning him “astronomical” approval ratings from the Filipino people.
He emphasized that the former president’s guilt or innocence should be decided in Filipino courts.
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