{"id":14130,"date":"2026-10-16T06:55:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T05:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=14130"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:00:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T10:00:05","slug":"icc-rodrigo-duterte-fit-for-trial-two-bids-of-his-defense-rejected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/icc-rodrigo-duterte-fit-for-trial-two-bids-of-his-defense-rejected\/","title":{"rendered":"ICC: Rodrigo Duterte fit for trial, two bids of his defense rejected"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court (ICC) denied<\/a> a request from former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s lawyers to amend the court\u2019s electronic evidence management system, or \u201cE-Court Protocol<\/a>.\u201d The requested system would have required an expert review of all open-source or user-generated evidence before his upcoming trial.<\/p>\n

Rodrigo Duterte faces<\/a> three counts of alleged crimes against humanity, involving at least 76 incidents of murder and attempted murder, before the ICC in connection to his so-called \u201cwar on drugs,\u201d that led to at least 27,000 extrajudicial killings.<\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s defense team contended<\/a> that the thousands of items disclosed by the prosecution could overwhelm the case record with potentially unreliable or irrelevant material. However, the ICC Trial Chamber III decided<\/a> that imposing additional review requirements would cause unwarranted delays and conflict with established procedures for handling evidentiary disputes.<\/p>\n

Expert verification not needed<\/strong><\/p>\n

In its ruling from September 28, 2026, the Chamber concluded<\/a> that requiring expert verification of the prosecution\u2019s extensive evidence was unnecessary.<\/p>\n

The Chamber instead agreed<\/a> to the prosecution\u2019s proposal to include a URL metadata field in the electronic evidence system to make it easier to trace the sources of online materials. The Registry* was instructed<\/a> to provide the revised E-Court Protocol by October 2, 2026.<\/p>\n

At the Third Status Conference on September 16, 2026, the Chamber reminded<\/a> both parties not to submit too much evidence at once and asked<\/a> the prosecution to prepare a shortlist of key evidence for the next session.<\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s lawyers said<\/a> it would take at least 16,000 hours to go through the documents. They requested<\/a> that the prosecution start a new case file and cap the evidence for review at 10,000 items, with a deadline of October 7, 2026.<\/p>\n

In a motion dated September 25, 2026, the defense stated<\/a> that the prosecution had submitted 62,130 pieces of evidence, with over 320,000 pages of documents and roughly 1,000 audiovisual files.<\/p>\n

The defense argued<\/a> that handing over such a massive amount of material just three months before trial left Duterte with too little time to prepare.<\/p>\n

The prosecution admitted<\/a> that there were some duplication and administrative issues but called the defense\u2019s concerns exaggerated.<\/p>\n

International law professor Romel Bagares explained<\/a> that presenting a lot of evidence doesn\u2019t always mean prosecutors are overloading the court. In complicated cases like Duterte\u2019s, prosecutors need to submit<\/a> enough material to prove the charges and show how the accused was involved.<\/p>\n

Bagares also noted<\/a> that ICC rules require prosecutors to provide any evidence that could help the defense. Therefore, submitting more evidence than what will ultimately be used in court is not inappropriate.<\/p>\n

Duterte is fit to stand trial<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ICC Trial Chamber III announced<\/a> on October 8, 2026, that Duterte is fit to stand trial in his case on charges of crimes against humanity. This decision followed<\/a> an extensive evaluation by an independent Panel of Experts, which unanimously concluded that Duterte can understand the accusations and the court’s proceedings.<\/p>\n

Formal cognitive tests showed<\/a> no significant memory loss and no solid evidence of severe cognitive impairment. The medical experts also found<\/a> improvements in Duterte’s general health, attributing them to the high standard of medical and nursing care he has received while in custody.<\/p>\n

The Chamber also adopted<\/a> necessary measures to facilitate Duterte\u2019s effective participation in the trial, scheduled<\/a> to begin on November 30, 2026.<\/p>\n

Request for refiling of charges rejected<\/strong><\/p>\n

On October 9, 2026, the Chamber rejected<\/a> the motion of the defense council to order the prosecution to refile the charges against Duterte. In its decision, Chamber III stated it lacked authority to order a refiling of charges before the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber.<\/p>\n

The Chamber also rejected<\/a> the defense\u2019s argument the charges were a \u201cmoving target\u201d and the \u201ccurrent landscape of crimes in this case\u201d was \u201cvirtually unlimited.\u201d It stressed that safeguards were already in place, including<\/a> the deadline of August 31 for prosecutors to \u201cadd new incidents information\u201d and \u201cfile auxiliary pre-trial documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chamber outlined that the Pre-Trial Chamber already clarified<\/a> that the provision of an exhaustive list of every incident was not needed for prosecutors, but the charges could be framed \u201cthrough illustrative examples of relevant incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fourth<\/a> ICC status conference on October 13, 2026, in the case against Duterte discussed the number of witnesses and body of evidence. The prosecution stressed<\/a> it reduced the witness list to 173 from 193; not all witnesses are expected to testify.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* The Registry is a neutral office within the ICC, assisting all branches to keep the court running smoothly and upholding fair, open proceedings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 Emmalyn L. Kotte<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court (ICC) denied a request from former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s lawyers to amend the court\u2019s electronic evidence management system, or \u201cE-Court Protocol.\u201d The requested system would have required an expert review of all open-source or user-generated evidence before his upcoming trial. Rodrigo Duterte faces three counts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":13255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,73,58,62,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war-on-drugs-en","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-news","category-international-institutions","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14130"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14209,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14130\/revisions\/14209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}