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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider 'Never happened’: Duterte lawyer belies ICC victim ID claims

'Never happened’: Duterte lawyer belies ICC victim ID claims

Published Apr 23, 2025 07:01 am

Lawyer Nicholas Kaufman, former president’s Rodrigo Duterte’s lead counsel in the International Criminal Court (ICC), denied that his team requested to restrict the participation of drug war victims in the ICC proceedings by pushing for stringent identification documents.

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Former president Rodrigo Duterte and his British-Israeli lead counsel Nicholas Kaufman (Screengrab from ICC, ABS-CBN News video)


In an interview on Tuesday, April 22, Kaufman belied the claims made by lawyers Kristina Conti and Joel Butuyan, the victims’ representatives, that the defense asked the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I to accept only passports or National IDs to verify the identities of the victims’ relatives who want to participate in the proceedings.

“This whole thing about the judges rejecting my proposal never happened. All that happened was two activists, victims’ representatives by the names of Joel Butuyan and Kristina Conti who made all sorts of assertions in the press that I asked to restrict victims’ participation in the process by limiting the ID documents that could be used,” he explained in The Hague.

“That never happened. All I was doing was relying on what supposed the Philippine security system requires for ID to be verified in the Philippines,” he said.

Duterte’s lead counsel stressed that their request was simply for the ICC to require ID documents that can be verified, similar to the requirements of the country’s Social Security System (SSS), to assess the victims’ applications.

“That’s all we did. We made observations. We did not make a request that’s rejected. That’s a big lie,” Kaufman said.

In a 20-page “Order on the conduct of confirmation proceedings” uploaded on April 17 on the ICC website, the Chamber announced the easing of ID rules.

This meant that it will consider multiple government IDs in the absence of passports and National IDs for individuals to be recognized as family members or relatives of the drug war victims.

Among the now acceptable documents are barangay clearances, senior citizen’s IDs, postal ID card, birth certificate, and Community Tax Certificate (Cedula), among others.

Furthermore, Kaufman revealed that both Conti and Butuyan have yet to be accepted by the ICC as legal representatives of the alleged victims of extrajudicial killings.

The British-Israeli lawyer is the lead counsel for the defense team of the former president, who is facing crimes against humanity of charges of murder for his administration’s bloody war on drugs campaign.

He is currently detained in The Hague, Netherlands, with his confirmation of charges hearing set on Sept. 23.

Related Tags

International Criminal Court crimes against humanity Nicholas Kaufman Rodrigo Duterte
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