3 days ago
12
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
February 27, 2026 | 8:23am
Families of victims in extrajudicial killings of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war watch a live stream of Duterte's confirmation hearing from The Hague, in Quezon City, Metro Manila on February 26, 2026.
AFP / Jam Sta Rosa
MANILA, Philippines — Detained Rodrigo Duterte’s lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, challenged the credibility of the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution’s witnesses against the former president.
Kaufman, during the defense presentation on February 26 (Manila time), labeled the prosecution’s star witnesses as “self-confessed vicious murderers” whose testimony is “inherently unreliable.”
“For this wild assertion, the prosecution relies once again on the evidence of criminals it has recruited, all of whom are inherently unreliable because of their being self-confessed vicious murderers testifying in return for virtual immunity from proceedings at the ICC,” Kaufman said.
Kaufman raised serious concerns regarding how the witnesses were recruited, alleging political motivation behind their appearances.
He claimed that at least two of the most prominent accomplice witnesses were “offered up to the prosecution on a silver platter.”
“I cannot say by who in open session. Neither the Rome Statute, nor its accompanying texts, regulate the way statements of limited use are employed. I would like the pre-trial chamber to consider the way academics and the prosecution itself has qualified the implementation of limited use statements in the past,” Kaufman said.
He added that not one witness relevant to the 49 charged incidents can testify to receiving a direct order from Duterte to kill anyone.
He also dismissed the prosecution's witnesses as individuals whose credibility is as “worthless as a devalued peso,” noting that their claims of a "common plan" were often contradicted by their own admissions that many shootings were justified acts of self-defense.
RELATED: Kaufman: Duterte not co-perpetrator in drug war due to lack of ‘common plan’
The final hearing on the confirmation of charges against the former president will be held on Friday, February 27.
The defense, prosecution, and the representatives of the victims will make their closing statements. The international tribunal will also review Duterte’s detention.
