Duterte refused fingerprinting and threatened lawsuits during chaotic arrest, Philippine police say

MANILA, Philippines (news agencies) — Ex-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened a police general with lawsuits, refused to be fingerprinted and told law enforcers “you have to kill me to bring me to The Hague” in a tense confrontation after his arrest in Manila that was ordered by the International Criminal Court, a Philippine police general said Thursday.

Police Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre provided details for the first time of Tuesday’s 12-hour standoff at a Philippine air base before he and other police officers managed to bring the 79-year-old former leader onto a government-chartered jet that took him to The Hague, Netherlands, where he was detained by the global court on charges of crimes against humanity.

ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said Thursday in a text message to reporters that Duterte had arrived at the court’s detention center near the Dutch North Sea coast after undergoing medical checks.

The court announced late Thursday that Duterte is scheduled to make his first appearance before ICC judges on Friday. At the hearing he will be informed of the charges against him, read his rights and a date will be set for a further pretrial hearing.

Duterte was once feared for his brutal anti-crime crackdowns and reviled for his irreverence while in office — he called Pope Francis a “son of a bitch” at one time and said that U.S. President Barack Obama could “go to hell.”

Duterte’s stunning reversal of fortune has been celebrated by human rights groups as a historic triumph against state impunity, while his supporters have slammed what they call the current government’s surrendering of a rival to a court whose jurisdiction they dispute.

Duterte was arrested Tuesday after he arrived at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport with his common-law wife, daughter and friends from Hong Kong.

He was later taken under heavy police guard to a nearby presidential lounge at the Villamor Air Base to undergo booking for arrested criminal suspects, including fingerprinting, before being taken to a plane for the long flight to The Hague to be turned over to the ICC, Torre said.

But Duterte, his family, lawyers and friends resisted and prevented the former leader from being brought to a Gulfstream G550 executive jet, according to Torre.

The standoff lasted for about 12 hours, Torre said.

“It was very tense,” Torre told media. “One of my officers sustained a head injury after being hit hard with a cellphone” by Duterte’s common-law wife “and his daughter was cursing me with expletives, but I kept my cool.”

The ex-president, who used to be a government prosecutor and congressman, refused to undergo the police booking procedure after his arrest, Torre said.

“We wanted to have him fingerprinted, but he resisted,” Torre said. In a separate interview, he said that he arrested and handcuffed the former president’s executive secretary for blocking Duterte’s transfer to the plane.

Torre confirmed to the news agencies the authenticity of a video that has gone viral on social media showing Duterte surrounded by his family, lawyers and friends and asking Torre, who led the arresting officers, “Are you going to bring me straight to the airplane?”

“You have to kill me to bring me to The Hague,” Torre quoted Duterte as saying.

“That’s not our intention sir,” Torre said as his men dragged away one of several men surrounding Duterte.

Duterte’s lawyers said that Philippine authorities didn’t show any copy of the ICC warrant and violated his constitutional rights.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration allowed the global court to take custody of Duterte, although the Philippines was no longer a party to the ICC, the legal team said.

“Our own government has surrendered a Filipino citizen — even a former president at that — to foreign powers,” Vice President Sara Duterte, the ex-president’s daughter and a political rival of the current president, said Tuesday before her father was flown out of Manila.

“This is a blatant affront to our sovereignty and an insult to every Filipino who believes in our nation’s independence,” she said. “This is not justice — this is oppression and persecution,” she said.