WATCH: ICC prosecutor defends data on 3,400 deaths in Duterte drug war

MANILA, Philippines — International Criminal Court (ICC) senior trial lawyer Julian Nicholls pushed back against former president Rodrigo Duterte’s defense after it questioned the reliability of the prosecution’s data on drug war killings, insisting that analysts manually reviewed the records used to identify around 3,400 deaths in police operations.

During a status conference on Tuesday, Nicholls disputed the defense’s claims about the dataset, saying the prosecution separated deaths in police operations from other killings included in the larger collection of documents.

Duterte is facing three counts of crimes against humanity involving murder and attempted murder allegedly committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians in the Philippines between Nov. 1, 2011, and March 16, 2019, in the context of the government’s war on drugs.

The trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 30, 2026, following an ICC ruling that the former Philippine leader is fit to stand trial.