With the confirmation of charges hearing on ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes against humanity charges scheduled for Sept. 23 at the International Criminal Court (ICC), there is much buzz about what can be expected during and after this critical pre-trial phase.

Atty. Nicholas Kaufman, the lead counsel of Duterte’s defense team, spoke with the media in The Hague on Tuesday, Aug. 26, to give the former president’s supporters an update about their plans for the hearing.

Assuring that he will deliver a “very strong rebuttal of prosecution evidence,” the lawyer said that similar to the prosecution, the defense team will spend 30 minutes each for their opening and closing statements, and another three to four hours for addressing the legal issues of the case.

He explained that the confirmation of charges hearing is critical for the continuation of the case to the actual trial phase.

“So, pretrial phase is when you're building up to this big hearing, which is going to take place in September, according to the current schedule, the confirmation of charges hearing. This is when the prosecution get the first opportunity to present their case, and the defense get their first opportunity to challenge the prosecution evidence,” Kaufman said.

During the hearing, the prosecution must convince the judges “that there are substantial grounds to believe that the suspect, in this case, the former president, committed the crimes which the prosecution alleges he committed.”

“This is a higher standard, a higher evidentiary standard, than the reasonable suspicion standard, which is sufficient to get someone arrested. But it's a lower standard than the standard which has to be proved at trial, which is beyond reasonable doubt. So it's a kind of somewhere in between standard,” he added.

If the judges rule that there “substantial grounds” to continue to the trial phase, the lawyer explained that’s when witnesses will be brought to testify, and their evidence will be tested through a cross-examination.

But before this, Kaufman is hopeful that the Pre-Trial Chamber I (PTC I) of the ICC will adjudicate on the defense’s two pending petitions—the jurisdiction challenge and the application for interim release—before the Sept. 23 hearing.

“Well, it's customary that the chambers rule on such requests as quickly as possible,” he said, referring to the interim release request, while the decision on the jurisdiction challenge can come “at any stage, even up until the end of the confirmation of charges hearing.”

“We believe that it should be decided earlier, but as you know, we made the request a long time ago, and we're still awaiting a decision on that particular matter. Interim release, however, is a different matter entirely, and the judges normally decide on that type of thing as soon as possible,” he stressed.

Kaufman also dismissed reports that there are more than 300 witnesses who have applied to be recognized as Duterte’s drug-war victims because this “is double the amount that I'm aware of, so I don't know where these extra 150 have come from.”

“But anyway, be that as it may, the prosecution will announce the witnesses that it intends to rely on. It's not for the defense to decide which witnesses to bring,” he said.

“It's the prosecution who brought this case against the former president. It's the prosecution who have to prove this case against the former president. And they have to do it beyond reasonable doubt, assuming they satisfy the substantial grounds to believe,” the lawyer explained.

He maintained, however, that despite his hopes that the two petitions will be ruled on before the confirmation of charges hearing, this would not affect the defense’s strategy.

“We hope that the former president will be released. We believe he should be released, and we hope that it will happen,” Kaufman said.