Ginpresentar ni former Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea sa atubang it judges sa International Criminal Court nga “pure and simple kidnapping” ro ginhimo nga pag-aresto kay former President Rodrigo Duterte ko Martes ag pagdaea kana sa The Hague.
Hayra ro full transcript it anang manifestation:
Salvador Medialdea: Two days ago, the whole world has witnessed the degrading fashion in which a former president of a sovereign country was bundled into a private aircraft and summarily transported to The Hague. To ask lawyers, this would be called an extrajudicial rendition. To the less legally inclined, it was a pure and simple kidnapping. My client was denied all access to the legal recourse in the country of his citizenship and this all in the nature of political quar-settling.
Two troubled entities struck an unlikely alliance. An incumbent president who wished to neutralize and choke the legacy of my client and his daughter, on the other hand, and a troubled legal institution subject to delegitimization and desperate for a price cut and a legal show today, on the other hand.
With this in mind, it is not surprising that my client was abducted from his country. ICC private jets do not drop out of the thin air. That jet which received my client was coordinated in advance. The UAE is not a state party to the ICC and has no obligation to cooperate with the court. Yet my client sat in transit in that country for more than five hours. I invite the registry’s representative to present today in court to explain to the judges exactly how they believe this transfer was anything other than a gross abuse of process.
Given the precipitous arrival of my client, an elderly man with debilitating medical issues, hard of hearing and poor of sight, he was taken to a hospital for observation. Only this morning have I met him for the first time with less than an hour to discuss legal issues. I have not been able to present him with a hard copy of the arrest warrant because we were not supplied with such.
I have not even been able to explain to him what the prosecution requested when seeking the issuance of an arrest warrant. This is because the chamber only established a redacted version of the prosecution request last night. Other than to identify himself, my client is not able to contribute anything to this hearing.
Most importantly, he is not able even to tell you that he has been informed of the charges as contained in the arrest warrant for a reason more pertinent to which I alluded in my written request to this honorable pretrial chamber this morning and which is confidential in nature.
Accordingly, I repeat my respectful request, which was rejected this morning, to postpone the substantive aspect of this hearing to the next week when I will have the opportunity to sit with my client and to explain to him what the confirmation hearing is and what the disclosure is and how the prosecution alleges that he committed crimes. I thank the Court for its attention and regret to say that I do not have instructions to continue my submission any further today. Thank you.
