President threatens to slap ICC prosecutor anew

DAVAO CITY—President Du-terte again threatened to slap International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda after learning that she had started an ICC examination of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in his bloody war on drugs.

The President reiterated he would only allow Philippine courts to investigate his human rights record, not a court “created by Europeans.”

“I will only face the Philippine courts. If I have to be sent to jail, I will do so in a regular court in the Republic of the Philippines. I will [do so] gladly,” he said during the birthday celebration of former Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano at Marco Polo hotel here.

Gambian lawyer

“And that short lady there, the black, announcing investigation — if I see you, I will slap you. Who are you to threaten me?” he added, referring to Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer and international criminal law prosecutor.

March withdrawal

The President announced the country’s withdrawal from the ICC last March after the court said it would start a preliminary examination of drug-related killings by police and vigilantes in the Philippines.

“Like you, I don’t want these Europeans. They want to impose their values on other nations,” he said, addressing Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who proceeded to the birthday party after earlier inaugurating the Chinese consulate in this city.

Bensouda had earlier warned that any person in the Philippines who incites or engages in “acts of mass violence, including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing in any other manner, to the commission of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC is potentially liable to prosecution before the [ICC] court.”