The former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested Tuesday under an arrest warrant against the International Criminal Court, who accused him of crimes against humanity in relation to the brutal “War against drugs” he directed while he was in office, said the office of presidential communications of the Philippines.
The members of the National Police of the Philippines met with the former president when he arrived in Manila, the capital, on a flight from Hong Kong, the office said.
The police meet while waiting for the arrival of the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay, Metro Manila, on March 11, 2025.
Jam Sta Rosa/AFP through Getty Images
Duterte carried out an extensive “war on drugs” after assuming office in 2016. Independent rights organizations accused him of supervising a crusade of extrajudicial murders, many of which were supposedly carried out by the so -called “death squads.”
It was thought that more than 12,000 people were killed, according to Human Rights Watch.
The former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, speaks within the Southorn stadium during a Thanksgiving meeting organized by Filipino workers based in Hong Kong for the former populist president in Hong Kong on March 9, 2025.
Vernon Yuen/Ap
The authorities in Manila said they received a copy of an arrest warrant against the CPI through Interpol on Tuesday morning. Dozens of officers swarmed the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to arrest Duterte when he and his assistants arrived at 9:20 am, said the presidential office.
“The former president and his entourage have good health and have been examined by government doctors,” said the office in a statement published on social networks in Filipino. “They have assured that it is in good condition.”
The ICC began an investigation into the “war on drugs” of Duterte in September 2021. The Filipino government that year tried to end the investigation, a request that was denied in 2023 by Karim AA Khan, the CPI prosecutor, according to his office.
Khan when rejecting the request indicated an investigation carried out by the Philippines Commission of Human Rights in police and state activities carried out under the “War on Drugs” between 2016 and 2021.
That investigation found that the Government “failed in its obligation to respect and protect the human rights of each citizen, in particular, victims of drug -related murders” and “has encouraged a culture of impunity that the perpetrators protected from being considered,” Khan wrote.
The court focused his investigation into Duterte’s actions between 2011, when he was a local mayor and 2019.
Andrew Evans and Karson Yiu of ABC News contributed to this report.
