ICC judges find former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte fit to stand trial

Judges at the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court ruled on Mon­day that for­mer Philip­pine Pres­i­dent Ro­dri­go Duterte is fit to stand tri­al, af­ter post­pon­ing an ear­li­er hear­ing over con­cerns about the oc­to­ge­nar­i­an’s health.

Duterte is fac­ing charges of crimes against hu­man­i­ty for his al­leged in­volve­ment in dozens of killings as part of his so-called war on drugs when in of­fice, first as the may­or of a south­ern city and lat­er as pres­i­dent.

Lawyers for the 80-year old had ar­gued Duterte was in frail health and his con­di­tion was de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in the court’s de­ten­tion unit.

Duterte was ar­rest­ed in March and was set to ap­pear in court in The Hague in Sep­tem­ber. That hear­ing was de­layed af­ter a pre­tri­al pan­el of judges grant­ed “lim­it­ed post­pone­ment” to give the court time to de­ter­mine “whether Mr Duterte is fit to fol­low and par­tic­i­pate” in the pro­ceed­ings.

Fol­low­ing an as­sess­ment by a pan­el of med­ical ex­perts, judges found that Duterte “is able ef­fec­tive­ly to ex­er­cise his pro­ce­dur­al rights and is there­fore fit to take part in the pre-tri­al pro­ceed­ings.”

The hear­ing has now been resched­ule for Feb­ru­ary 23, 2026.

The pan­el in­clud­ed ex­perts in geri­atric neu­rol­o­gy and psy­chi­a­try. Ac­cord­ing to court fil­ings, Duterte un­der­went cog­ni­tive test­ing, as well as men­tal and phys­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tions.

Duterte’s lead lawyer, Nick Kauf­man, said he was dis­ap­point­ed in the de­ci­sion and would seek to ap­peal.

The de­fense was “de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty to present its own med­ical ev­i­dence and to ques­tion, in court, the con­tra­dic­to­ry find­ings of pro­fes­sion­als se­lect­ed by the judges,” he said.

Rights groups and fam­i­lies of vic­tims hailed Duterte’s ar­rest in March. Two or­ga­ni­za­tions sup­port­ing the fam­i­lies of sus­pects killed in Duterte’s crack­down hailed the court’s de­ci­sion as “a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry for jus­tice and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

In a joint state­ment, SEN­TRO and the CATW-AP said, “The ICC’s rul­ing reaf­firms a sim­ple but pow­er­ful truth: No one, not even a for­mer head of state, is above the law.”

Ac­cord­ing to a fil­ing last month, ICC pros­e­cu­tors claim Duterte in­struct­ed and au­tho­rized “vi­o­lent acts in­clud­ing mur­der to be com­mit­ted against al­leged crim­i­nals, in­clud­ing al­leged drug deal­ers and users.”

Pros­e­cu­tors an­nounced in Feb­ru­ary 2018 that they would open a pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the so-called war on drugs over­seen by Duterte when he served as may­or of the south­ern Philip­pine city of Davao and lat­er as pres­i­dent.

In a move that hu­man rights ac­tivists say was aimed at es­cap­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, Duterte, who was pres­i­dent at the time, an­nounced a month lat­er that the Philip­pines would leave the court.

Judges re­ject­ed a re­quest from Duterte’s le­gal team to throw out the case on the grounds that the court did not have ju­ris­dic­tion be­cause the Philip­pines had with­drawn from the court.

Coun­tries can’t “abuse” their right to with­draw from the Rome Statute “by shield­ing per­sons from jus­tice in re­la­tion to al­leged crimes that are al­ready un­der con­sid­er­a­tion,” the Sep­tem­ber de­ci­sion says.

Es­ti­mates of the death toll dur­ing Duterte’s pres­i­den­tial term vary, from the more than 6,000 that the na­tion­al po­lice have re­port­ed to up to 30,000 claimed by hu­man rights groups. —THE HAGUE, Nether­lands (AP)

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Sto­ry by MOL­LY QUELL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press