Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte arrested under ICC warrant
The Washington Post
March 11, 2025
By Kelly Kasulis Cho and Victoria Craw
Duterte is accused of thousands of extrajudicial killings during his war on drugs. He was arrested in Manila and was “forcibly” taken to The Hague, his daughter said.
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte delivers a speech during a rally for his political party in Manila on Feb. 13. (Eloisa Lopez/Reuters)
Rodrigo Duterte, the former Philippine president who has been accused of crimes against humanity and the extrajudicial killings of thousands of people during his “war on drugs,” was arrested Tuesday in Manila under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, the government reported.
Duterte, 79, was detained by the Philippine police shortly after flying into the country from Hong Kong at about 9:20 a.m. Video showed him walking with a cane and accompanied by officials inside Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila.
Local media reported that he departed the Philippines on a private jet bound for the Netherlands. Unverified footage from a retired Philippine general published Tuesday night, which was shared widely by local media, showed the elder Duterte boarding a private jet; The Washington Post could not immediately verify where the plane was headed. The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Duterte, a former lawyer turned populist leader, was president between 2016 and 2022, a period in which he advocated for executing alleged criminals and oversaw the killings of thousands of people in what authorities portrayed as drug-related cases.
On the campaign trail and in office, Duterte styled himself as a strongman who would prevent the Philippines from further cascading into a purported narco state. In 2016, he said he would be “happy to slaughter” drug addicts for the sake of his country, drawing a comparison to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
It’s unclear how many people were killed during Duterte’s war on drugs, but Human Rights Watch estimated in 2018 that about 12,000 Filipinos had died since he took office less than two years before and attributed at least 2,555 killings directly to the Philippine National Police. Some estimates put the number at as many as 20,000 to 30,000 victims during the six-year war on drugs.
In June 2022, the country’s government reported that at least 6,252 people had died “during antidrug operations” since July 2016.
Duterte’s war on drugs drew fierce condemnation from human rights groups, world leaders and several U.N. agencies. A case against Duterte was filed in the International Criminal Court in 2017, alleging mass murder and crimes against humanity.
Duterte denied the charges and responded by vowing to withdraw the Philippines from the ICC, a promise that was carried out in 2019. The ICC formally authorized an investigation into his drug crackdown in 2021.
While in Hong Kong this week, Duterte said he would accept his arrest and portrayed his actions as a way to bring peace to the Philippines, according to Reuters.
But his allies censured his arrest on Tuesday, with Sara Duterte saying: “Today, our own government has surrendered a Filipino citizen — even a former president at that — to foreign powers.” She called the arrest a “blatant affront to our sovereignty” and “oppression and persecution.”
“What is the law and what is the crime that I committed?” Duterte said in a separate video posted to Instagram by his daughter Veronica Duterte. “Show to me now the legal basis for my being here.”
Duterte’s other daughter, Sara Duterte, who is vice president of the Philippines, said in a Tuesday night statement that her father was being “forcibly taken to The Hague,” where the ICC is headquartered.
Salvador S. Panelo, Duterte’s former chief legal counsel and presidential spokesman, called the arrest “unlawful” and said the ICC has “no jurisdiction over the Philippines” in a statement on social media.
The ICC is responsible for investigating and trying those charged with some of the most serious crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
It has in recent years issued arrest warrants for high-ranking officials accused of crimes during Ukraine and Gaza wars, including Russian President Vladimir Putin; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Israel’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant; and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, whom Israel’s military said was killed in a July 2024 strike. Those warrants were largely symbolic as the ICC does not try people in absentia, and neither Russia, Israel nor the United States is a member of the court.
The ICC does not have a police force and depends on its 125 member states to carry out arrest warrants, although there have been instances of members ignoring the warrants.
The Philippine government previously indicated it would comply with requests from Interpol — through which the ICC can issue arrest warrants — including those related to the ICC investigation. However, last year, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — Duterte’s successor and the son of a disgraced Philippine dictator — said the government “will not lift a finger to help any investigation that the ICC conducts,” claiming it has no jurisdiction over the country.
The ICC says that despite the Philippines withdrawing from the court statute in March 2019, the court “retains jurisdiction” for alleged crimes that took place while it was still a member.
On Tuesday, the Philippine National Police deployed extra personnel to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and, in a statement, warned against the spread of misinformation, advising the “public to rely only on official government sources for accurate information”
Kelly Kasulis Cho is a breaking news reporter and editor at The Washington Post, based in Seoul. Previously, she spent four years covering North and South Korea as a freelance foreign correspondent, and she has also worked at the New York Times and Bloomberg BNA. Follow her on Twitter: @KasulisK.follow on X@kasulisk
Victoria Craw is a breaking news reporter and editor in The Washington Post’s London Hub.
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