Duterte defense seeks ICC nod to dispute 32,000-item drug war dataset

MANILA — The defense team of Rodrigo Duterte has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to allow it to file a reply to the prosecution’s arguments over the disclosure and review of evidence in his crimes against humanity case.

In a public redacted filing dated October 9, the defense sought permission from Trial Chamber III to submit a reply addressing two issues: the relevance of a dataset containing records of deaths during Duterte’s presidency and the prosecution’s efforts to facilitate the defense’s review of the material.

The defense argued that the prosecution had failed to adequately review the dataset, which reportedly contains 32,000 items, and determine which records are relevant to the case, including potentially exonerating evidence.

“The Defence position is that the Prosecution is not entitled to merely select the ‘most relevant’ incriminating items and decline to determine the materiality, relevance, or exonerating nature of the remainder,” the filing read.

The defense also questioned the prosecution’s characterization of the dataset as a complete archive of killings linked to police operations and drug-related deaths during Duterte’s presidency.

As an example, the defense cited a recorded stabbing incident allegedly arising from a gambling dispute, which it said the prosecution sought to include in its count of killings related to the war on drugs because the suspect was identified as a drug pusher and shabu was involved in the wager.

The defense claimed that hundreds or even thousands of similar incidents could be included in the dataset, potentially affecting the accuracy of the prosecution’s figures.

“The relevance of the [REDACTED] dataset depends on what it contains,” the filing stated.

The defense further disputed the prosecution’s claim that the dataset had undergone a “systematic and manual review,” arguing that the information contained in the records contradicted this assertion.

It also questioned the prosecution’s handling of the disclosure process, saying an initial offer on July 15 to provide the dataset through a separate platform with analysis capabilities was withdrawn after the defense accepted it on July 17.

Instead, the defense said the prosecution later proposed uploading all 32,000 items to the standard DefenceJEM platform, accompanied by an Excel spreadsheet that would require the defense team to assess the relevance of individual records.

The defense described this as an unreasonable burden and said it had waited three weeks, from July 24 to August 14, for a response on the disclosure issue while other case deadlines continued to run.

The defense is asking the chamber to grant leave to file a reply of no more than 10 pages within three days of approval.

The October 9 filing is a request for permission to submit a reply, not a ruling by the chamber on the disputed evidence disclosure issues.

Duterte is facing charges of crimes against humanity before the ICC over alleged killings linked to his administration’s war on drugs. He denies the allegations.