President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday threatened to have prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrested if they would come to the Philippines and continue with their probe on his war on drugs.
“You cannot exercise any proceedings here without basis. That is illegal and I will arrest you,” the President said in a press conference at the Davao International Airport upon his arrival in Hong Kong.
President Duterte particularly warned ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that she would be barred from entering the Philippines.
Bensouda is the prosecutor conducting a preliminary examination on the alleged human rights abuses under the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
“Kaya ikaw Ms. Fatou, ‘wag kang pumunta dito because I will bar you. Not because I am afraid of you, I said, because you will never have jurisdiction over my person, not in a million years,” President Duterte said.
The Chief Executive reiterated that the ICC has no jurisdiction over the Philippine because the country was never a member of the criminal court.
“There is no basis at all because we were never — the Philippines was not ever, ever a member of that ICC for the reason that there was no publication,” he said.
The President had earlier challenged the validity of the Rome Statute, the treaty which established the ICC because it was never published in the Official Gazette.
On March 14, the President announced the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC, citing “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks” by U.N. officials.
READ: Duterte does the inevitable, declares PH withdrawal from ICC /muf