Lawyers for former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte have urged judges at the International Criminal Court to throw out a prosecution bid to examine objects confiscated when he was taken into custody, calling the request poorly timed and damaging to the schedule the court has set for the case.
The objection came in a submission to Trial Chamber III dated June 26, 2026, in which lead counsel Peter Haynes contended that prosecutors had waited too long to bring the matter forward. According to the filing, the request is “too late” and would throw off the case timetable — a concern with weight given that the trial is fixed to begin on November 30 and the prosecution faces an August 31 deadline to lodge its detailed trial brief, witness list, and inventory of intended evidence.
A second submission filed the same day pushed back against a related prosecution effort, this one seeking to obtain “all keys” recovered during the arrest. Haynes’s team described that bid as a “fishing expedition,” arguing it would trample the privacy of relatives who have no part in the proceedings against the former president.
The disputes mark some of the first significant courtroom skirmishes under Haynes, the British barrister who took over Duterte’s defense ahead of the trial phase after Nicholas Kaufman’s contract lapsed at the end of March. Trial Chamber III, presided over by Judge Joanna Korner alongside judges Keebong Paek and Nicolas Guillou, was constituted in April to steer the case toward trial.
Duterte, now 81, has remained in detention at The Hague since his surrender to the court in March 2025. In April, Pre-Trial Chamber I confirmed three counts of crimes against humanity against him tied to killings during his years as Davao City mayor and as head of state, clearing the way for the case to advance.
