Philippines' Duterte will not cooperate with ICC probe: spokesman

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will ‘never cooperate’ with an International Criminal Court probe into the country's deadly drug war, his spokesman said Tuesday, branding the process ‘legally erroneous’. Outgoing ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Monday asked judges at the world's only permanent war crimes court to authorise an investigation into allegations that Philippine police unlawfully killed as many as tens of thousands of civilians between 2016 and 2019. Duterte was elected in 2016 on a campaign promise to get rid of the country's drug problem, and he openly ordered police to kill drug suspects if their lives were in danger. ‘The president will never cooperate until the end of his term on June 30, 2022,’ Harry Roque told reporters, repeating a previous assertion that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines because it pulled out of the tribunal.