MANILA, Philippines — The prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has removed an alleged drug-related killing from its trial brief in the crimes against humanity case against former president Rodrigo Duterte, complying with a court order that found the incident fell outside the period covered by the confirmed charges.
In an updated trial brief filed on Oct. 20, the prosecution removed Incident 57 involving the alleged murder of a high-value drug target after Trial Chamber III ruled that it occurred beyond the time frame established for the charge.
Despite the removal, the prosecution retained its existing lists of witnesses and evidence, saying material related to the incident, when considered alongside other evidence, remained relevant to establishing the contextual elements of crimes against humanity and Duterte’s individual criminal responsibility.
The prosecution’s explanation was partly redacted in the public filing, leaving the specific details of how the related evidence would support its case undisclosed.
Incident 57 was one of eight additional incidents the prosecution sought to include in its case. The incident fell under Count 2, which covers alleged murders of high-value drug targets across the Philippines between July 2016 and July 2017.
In its Oct. 9 decision, Trial Chamber III found that Incident 57 allegedly occurred about two weeks beyond the period covered by Count 2. The judges ruled that the prosecution could not expand the temporal scope of the confirmed charges to accommodate the incident.
“The Prosecution cannot now be permitted to broaden the temporal scope of the confirmed charges beyond the defined period the Prosecution itself established,” the chamber said in its ruling.
Although the incident fell within the type and geographical scope of the allegations under Count 2, its timing placed it outside the confirmed charge, the judges found. The chamber therefore excluded Incident 57 while allowing seven other additional incidents, numbered 50 to 56, to remain in the case.
The ruling brought the total number of incidents covered by the prosecution’s trial brief to 56, up from the 49 incidents covered when the charges were confirmed in April.
The exclusion does not mean the court found that the alleged killing did not occur or that Duterte was cleared of responsibility for it. Rather, the ruling concerned whether the incident could be included under the confirmed charges as framed.
