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Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte will remain in custody after the International Criminal Court (ICC) rejected an appeal from his defence team for release on medical grounds.
The ICC judges ruled on Friday that Duterte still posed a flight risk and could interfere with witnesses if freed, saying these concerns outweighed his reported health problems.
“The Chamber finds that Mr Duterte’s detention continues to remain necessary,” the ICC stated in a heavily redacted ruling dated October 10.
Prosecutors have accused Duterte of three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging that he was involved in at least 76 killings linked to his brutal “war on drugs.”
The first charge involves 19 murders committed between 2013 and 2016, when Duterte was mayor of Davao City. The second covers 14 killings of alleged “high-value targets” during his presidency in 2016 and 2017.
The third charge relates to 43 killings during “clearance operations” targeting suspected minor drug users and dealers between 2016 and 2018.
Duterte was arrested in Manila on March 11, and flown to the Netherlands later that night. He has been held at the ICC’s detention centre in Scheveningen Prison since then. During his first court appearance by video link, he appeared frail, disoriented, and spoke very little.
His lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, claimed Duterte was unfit to face trial due to “cognitive impairment in multiple domains” and asked that the case be postponed indefinitely.
Responding to the ICC’s decision, Kaufman told AFP: “The Defence believes that rejecting unprecedented State guarantees for a frail and cognitively impaired 80-year-old man, hidden from public view for over six months, is a serious error. An appeal was filed last week.”
Judges maintained that Duterte “remains a flight risk” and must stay in custody to guarantee his presence during pre-trial proceedings and any potential trial.
They cited his “political connections” and “strong network of support,” including his daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, which could help him escape.
The court also noted that Duterte or his allies could pose a threat to witnesses, directly or indirectly, strengthening the case for continued detention.
Medical documents submitted by his defence team were found insufficient to justify his release. The judges said the reports “do not demonstrate how Mr Duterte’s physical or cognitive condition reduces the identified risks.”
However, the ruling applies only to his interim detention and does not determine whether he is mentally or physically fit to stand trial.
The court stressed that this assessment “is without prejudice” to future decisions regarding his fitness to participate in proceedings.
The next phase — the “confirmation of charges” hearing — will decide whether there is enough evidence for a full trial. It has been postponed indefinitely while judges assess Duterte’s health claims.
His son, Paolo Duterte, a member of the House of Representatives, condemned the ICC’s ruling as “a disgraceful miscarriage of justice,” describing the process as “political theatre, not law.”
