The Philippines ex-leader Duterte was arrested on the ICC warrant about the assassination of drugs

Philippine police detained former President Rodrigo Duterte after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant who accused him of crimes against humanity for his deadly “war with drugs”.

The 79-year-old guy was taken into custody immediately after his arrival at the Hong Kong Airport.

He did not apologize for the violent fight against drugs, which resulted in thousands of people killed when he was the president of the Southeast nation from 2016 to 2022, and before that mayor Davo City.

After his arrest, he questioned the foundation of the warrant, asking, “What crime did I commit?”

Former press secretary of President Duterte Salvador Pan punched his arrest, calling him “illegal” when the Philippines left the ICC in 2019.

Earlier, the ICC stated that he had jurisdiction in the Philippines about alleged crimes committed before the country retreated as a member.

But the activists called the arrest “historical moment” for those who died in their war drugs and their families, said the International Human Rights Coalition in the Philippines (ICHRP).

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but today it was leaning against justice. The arrest of Duterte is the beginning of the accounting for the massacres that he determined his brutal management,” said Ichrp chairman Peter Murphy.

Duterte was in Hong Kong to campaign on the upcoming elections on May 12, where he planned to run for Mary Davao.

The footage who aired on local television showed that he was leaving the airport using a cane. Authorities say he is in “good health” and government physicians care for.

“What is my sin? I did everything in my time for peace and peaceful life for the Philippine people,” he told the invigorating crowd of Philippine emigrants before leaving Hong Kong.

The video posted by his daughter, Veronica Duterte, showed Duterte in custody in the lounge in the Manila airbase. In it he can hear doubts about his arrest.

“What is the law and what crime I committed?

For 22 years, Duterte held the post of Mayor Davao, who divorced the southern metropolis and did it one of the safest in the country of street crimes.

He launched the reputation of Peace and Davao’s orders and made a tough anti-Items politician to win the 2016 elections with a landslide.

With fiery rhetoric, he rallied the power forces to shoot the suspected drugs dead. More than 6,000 suspects were withdrawn by police or unknown attackers during the campaign, but the right groups say the number may be higher.

In the previous UN report, it was found that most of the victims were young poor urban men and that police did not need arrest or arrest warrants, systematically forced suspects to make self -proclaimed statements or risk the death force.

Critics said the company was aimed at street jolts from urban poor and failed to catch the rulers of addiction. Many families also claimed that the victims – their sons, brothers or husband – were just in the wrong place at the time.

Parliament studies have shown on the shadow “death squad” of heads of heads aimed at drug suspects. Duterte denied allegations of abuse.

“Do not question my policy because I propose any apologies, no excuses. I did what I needed to do, and whether you believe it … I did it for my country,” Duterte said for a parliament’s investigation in October.

“I hate drugs, I’m not mistaken about it.”

The ICC first took note of the alleged abuse in 2016 and launched an investigation in 2021. He covered his business since November 2011, when Duterte was Davao Mayor, until March 2019, before the Philippines left the ICC.

Duterte remains popular in the Philippines, as he is the first leader of the country from Mindanao, the region south of Manila, where many feel marginalized in the capital.

He often speaks the regional language of Cebuana, not in a background that speaks more widely in Manila and northern regions.

His populist rhetoric and stupid statements brought him the nickname “Donald Trump from the East”. He called Russian President Vladimir Putin to his “idol”, and under his administration of the Philippines “resulted his foreign policy to China from the United States, his long -standing ally.

His daughter and political heir to Sarah Dutters-Academy Vice-President of the Philippines and in 2028 is a potential presidential candidate.

In recent months, the union of the Duterte family with the incumbent President Ferdinand Markas impressively flared up to the public view, shortly after Markas and Sarah Duterte won the landslide in the 2022 elections.

Initially, Marcos refused to cooperate with the ICC investigation, but when his relationship with the Duterte family deteriorated, he changed his position, and later noted that the Philippines would cooperate.

It is unclear whether Marcos will reach the ex -president to speak in the Hague court.

Additional Virma Simonette report in Manila