Sara Duterte denies Australia was asked to host her father after ICC release

Sara Duterte

Vice President Sara Duterte said her father’s lawyers had not asked Australia to take in her father, ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, should his petition for interim release from an International Criminal Court (ICC) detention facility in The Hague, the Netherlands, be granted.

Duterte was reacting to a supposed email from Australia’s foreign affairs and trade department saying that the Australian government would not agreed to “host” her father if he is granted temporary release by the ICC.

“First off, I’d like to clarify that the defense team of President Duterte never reached out to the Australian government to discuss about this interim release. There is no application of former President Duterte for interim release in Australia,” Duterte told reporters on Friday during a visit to Island Garden City of Samal on Friday.

She said she received a copy of an email from the “Australian Department of Foreign Relations and Trade.”

“I don’t know where the email came from, but I got a copy of it … and I do not know where and to whom it was addressed … and I don’t know as well on what basis [it] was able to say that they will not allow interim release … because in the first place there was no application for interim release in Australia,” she said.

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Among states considered

She said in an interview while in Melbourne over the weekend that Australia was considered an option for her father’s interim release.

“Australia is in the list of countries that are considered by the lawyers, but I am not here for the interim release, not for this visit,” she told reporters on Sunday.

It is understood that Australia would not accept her father while he is on temporary liberty, if his petition is approved by the ICC.

Canberra believes the tribunal should handle the matter in accord with the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.

In the petition filed on June 12, her father’s lead lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, informed the ICC that a third country had already agreed to take him in.

The ex-president has been held in the ICC detention facility since March 12, a day after he was arrested in Manila and flown to The Hague. He is charged with the crime against humanity of murder for the thousands killed in his brutal war on drug.

Too busy

The Vice President tried to meet with Australian foreign minister Penny Wong, but the latter was too busy and could not entertain the Vice President. Because of this, Duterte said she would not be meeting any Australian officials during her trip.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC opposed her father’s petition for interim release, citing among other reasons, that he and his family remained influential and powerful, and indicated that the third country that agreed to take him in was too far from the Netherlands where he would be called to attend hearings.

It would be “highly time consuming and complex to secure Mr. Duterte’s attendance in the courtroom given the distance” and “the time it would take to [redacted] likely outlast the period of Mr. Duterte’s interim release.”

In Malacañang, Palace Press Officer Clair Castro said the Department of Justice (DOJ) would be helping witnesses who might testify against the ex-president in the ICC, but this was not a direct cooperation with the tribunal.

“The way I understood it, the DOJ (Department of Justice) will help the witnesses in testifying, to attain justice for those demanding for justice,” Castro said in a press briefing.

Financial support

“It can be said that it is indirectly cooperating with the ICC – but the primary intention of the government is to help the victims and the witnesses of the victims to get the justice they need,” she said, adding that the help was also being extended to “fellow Filipinos” who had been victims of other crimes seeking justice.

“That is what the President wants, too – to give justice to those in search for it,” Castro said.

Earlier, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said the DOJ would provide financial support to witnesses who might be summoned to The Hague to testify at Duterte’s trial.

In an interview with ANC on Wednesday, Remulla said the ICC contacted the agency’s witness protection program to secure the witnesses who might need to travel to The Netherlands to testify before the ICC.

‘Well-founded request’

Remulla said the DOJ gave its support and cooperation as it is a “well-founded request” due to the need to bring the witnesses safely to The Hague.

He also clarified that the government will only spend funds on the witnesses who will testify before the ICC especially if they lack the financial resources to do so.

In December last year, the ICC launched a “witness appeal” microsite in a bid to have more potential witnesses and collect credible information on the bloody anti-narcotics campaign.

According to official Duterte administration recorded, over 6,000 mostly poor drug suspects were killed in police operations and summary executions. Human rights monitors say the figures were closer to 30,000. WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH