ICC allows 7 additional incidents in Duterte case

Photos show former president Rodrigo Duterte during his first in-person appearance before the tribunal since his arrest in March 2025.

Photos / ICC | via Janvic Mateo

MANILA, Philippines — Trial judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have allowed prosecutors to include additional incidents in the crimes against humanity case against former president Rodrigo Duterte.

In its 18-page decision released on Friday, the ICC Trial Chamber III formally allowed the prosecution to increase the number of incidents included in the case from 49 to 56.

The decision did not state what the additional incidents were.

But it denied the inclusion of one incident as it is not within the temporal parameters of the charges previously confirmed by the pre-trial chamber.

The decision stemmed from the two motions filed by Duterte’s legal team questioning the eight additional incidents added by the ICC prosecutor ahead of next month’s trial.

Defense lawyer Peter Haynes argued that the additional incidents “constitute new material facts and therefore fall outside of the facts and circumstances of the case.”

He urged the judges to either direct the prosecution to “re-file” the document to reframe the charges or to order the removal of the eight additional incidents.

The trial chamber denied the first request and partially granted the second motion.

In its decision, the trial chamber said the additional incidents are “all prima facie (and) fall within the factual, geographical and temporal scope of the charges.”

However, it said Incident 57, which was supposed to be included in the charges involving alleged murder of high-value targets, fall outside the confirmed charges “of between July 2016 and July 2017.”

Records show that the said incident occurred “two weeks after” the covered period.

“In the temporal context, the word ‘between’ means during the time period that separates two specific points in time or events. This necessarily connotes a precise interval of time, defined by a beginning and an end point,” read the decision.

“The Chamber finds that, while the term ‘around’ may allow for a greater degree of flexibility in the context of a specific charged event, it would be inappropriate to apply the same degree of flexibility to the charged period in the instant case,” it added.

The judges directed the prosecution to update its list of witnesses, list of evidence and trial brief to reflect the removal of Incident 57.

Duterte is facing three counts of crimes against humanity, divided into alleged killings by the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS), alleged murders of high-value targets during the drug war and killings during barangay clearance operations.