A newly filed defense motion is asking International Criminal Court prosecutors to rework the way former president Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity are laid out, arguing the current version denies him a clear picture of what he must answer for at trial.
The request, running 11 pages and dated Aug. 31, was submitted by defense counsel Peter Haynes, who told the pre-trial chamber that the prosecution’s document containing the charges, or DCC, cannot serve its intended function. In his words, it “is not fit for purpose and should be struck out.”
At the center of the objection is how the charges were organized. Rather than spelling out precise counts, the DCC was built “around illustrative non-exhaustive incidents” sorted under topical headings, the defense contends—an approach it says leaves Duterte unable to understand the detailed nature, cause, and content of what is being alleged against him, a protection he is entitled to.
The former president stands accused across three clusters of alleged killings. One covers murders said to have occurred in Davao between 2013 and 2016. A second concerns the alleged killing of high-value targets from 2016 to 2017. The third involves alleged murders and attempted murders tied to barangay operations spanning 2016 to 2018.
For the defense, the format itself is the problem, and an unprecedented one. “The prosecution’s decision to frame the charges in this entirely novel way makes it impossible for the defendant to know what case he has to meet at trial,” the motion states.
