Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s defense team has challenged the prosecution’s use of self-confessed murderers as star witnesses in the crimes against humanity case before the International Criminal Court (ICC), insisting their testimonies lack credibility and should be treated with caution.
Nicholas Kaufman, Duterte’s defense counsel, cast doubt on the reliability of testimonies from confessed killers who allegedly carried out the former president and his co-perpetrators’ “common plan” to neutralize—or, as prosecutors contend, kill—drug suspects. He stressed that such statements are of “limited use.”
Kaufman added that even if these statements were admissible against the witnesses themselves, their credibility must still be assessed individually.
“The prosecution’s star witnesses are self-confessed murderers, and most of their statements were taken by the prosecution’s investigators with the assurance of limited use—namely, that anything self-incriminating would not be used against them in proceedings at the ICC,” Kaufman said during the third session of the third day of the confirmation of charges on Thursday night (Manila time), Feb. 26.
He further noted that neither the Rome Statute nor its accompanying texts regulate how statements of limited use are employed. “Indeed, in many common law jurisdictions, the use of a self-avowed murderer to convict an alleged murderer would normally entail vetting and scrutiny of the highest order,” he added.
Earlier, during the prosecution team’s presentation on Tuesday, Feb. 24, prosecutors relied on confessions from self-confessed murderers as part of their evidence against Duterte, though one trial lawyer clarified that their statements would not be used against them.
The former president, along with his other co-perpetrators, is facing three counts of crimes against humanity at the ICC.
”Mr. Nichols will undoubtedly tell you that these agreements of limited use are not to be understood as the grant of immunity from prosecution,” Kaufman said, referring to ICC Prosecutor Julian Nichols.
“For all intents and purposes they are, and I am prepared to wager that we will not see even one, not one of these incriminating witnesses in a dock at this court, nor in the dock at any court anywhere in the world, after they have been rehoused and given protection of considerable expense to the state parties funding this court,” he added.
Kaufman also said that Duterte’s conviction “could be obtained without the cooperation of the self-confessed murderer or a number of them” because most courts and common law jurisdictions ”require an evidentiary supplement before relying on the sole testimony of a cooperating criminal witness” or an accomplice witness.
Besides, as one of ICC judges already wrote, Kaufman said, oral or written statements will only be of limited use and relied on for the purpose of pursuing leads or developing additional information or evidence.
According to Kaufman, these considerations “were never considered” by the prosecution because the self-confessed murderers were offered to them to become witnesses “on a silver platter, and I cannot say by whom in open session.”
”I do not think that I would be alone either in believing that there is something morally repugnant or even questionable from a public policy standpoint, to show not only one, but a number of murderers from prosecution at the ICC, just in an attempt to nail Rodrigo Duterte,” he said. (Joseph Pedrajas)
