Duterte threatens ICC chief with arrest

DAVAO CITY – President Duterte will bar International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda from coming to the country as he insisted that the ICC has no jurisdiction over him.

Duterte said he would even have Bensouda, who began examining in February the alleged crimes committed in the administration’s war against drugs, arrested once she arrives in the country to conduct a probe.

“That is why you, Ms. Fatou, do not come here because I will bar you. Not because I am afraid of you, (but) because you will never have jurisdiction over my person, not in a million years,” the President said after arriving from his trips in China and Hong Kong before dawn yesterday.

After ordering a membership withdrawal from the ICC, he questioned Bensouda’s authority to visit the Philippines and conduct an investigation.

“If we are not members of the treaty, why are you f****** in this country? You cannot exercise any proceedings here without basis. That is illegal and I will arrest you,” Duterte declared, adding that the prosecutor does not have any jurisdiction to conduct preliminary investigation.

He also believes that the country’s membership in the ICC is a violation to the Constitution after a failure to publish the treaty, citing the case of Tuvera versus Tañada.

“There has to be a publication. If there is no publication, it is as if there is no law at all,” he pointed out.

Duterte, a lawyer, called on the United Nations to “stop the nonsense on the ICC.”

“It is apparent that the ICC is being utilized as a political tool against the Philippines,” he said, adding that the body, until now, has failed to do anything on the bombing of a children’s hospital.