Prosecutor v. Duterte

Chronological View

1. Before the court

   What the charges are about. The court can try only what happened while the Philippines was a member, and these are those years.

2. Prosecution The side bringing the charges

   The Prosecutor

   The court’s own prosecution office

   At this court a case is brought in the name of the Prosecutor, the same way a criminal case in the US is brought in the name of the People or the State. The Prosecutor’s office is part of the court but it works on its own, so it isn’t acting for any country here, and that includes the Philippines. The person running this case is the deputy prosecutor, Mame Mandiaye Niang. The chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, isn’t on it. Appeals judges took him off in October 2025, because before he got the job he had worked for victims of these same killings and they said that could look like bias. The ruling was about how it could look, and it didn’t find that he was biased.

   ICC, case information sheet · Record 286-Red, p. 18

   Defendant The person charged

   Rodrigo Roa Duterte

   President of the Philippines, 2016–2022

   He was born in 1945 and grew up in Davao, on the southern island of Mindanao. He trained as a lawyer and spent nine years as a prosecutor for the city before he went into politics there in 1986. He was mayor of Davao City for more than 22 years in all, and the tough-on-crime name he made there is what he ran on for president in 2016. He won, served the one six-year term a president gets, and left office in 2022. In May 2025, two months after his arrest, Davao elected him mayor again. One of his sons has been doing the job in his place, and his daughter Sara is the country’s vice president. The court calls him the accused.

   Record 417-Red ¶¶ 78–79 · Record 282-Red ¶ 51 · Background: Britannica · Reporting: GMA News, Jul 1, 2025

   Nov 1, 2011

   The court’s treaty takes effect for the Philippines

   The country had ratified it two months earlier. From this day the court can try crimes committed on its soil, and the charges start on this date.

   The treaty is the Rome Statute. The Philippines ratified it on August 30, 2011, and it came into force for the country on November 1. He was vice mayor of Davao City at the time, with his daughter as mayor, and had been the mayor himself for most of the years since 1988.

   The prosecution says a death squad had been working in the city since the late 1980s. The court can’t reach anything from before this date, so the charges begin here.

   Record 309 ¶ 1 · Record 417-Red ¶ 78 · Record 178-Red2 ¶ 1

3. 2013 – Jun 2016

   Killings in Davao City

   The first count is about nine incidents in these years, in which 19 people were killed. The prosecution says the Davao Death Squad did it and that he ran it.

   Only one of the nine has a date and place the public can read: December 4, 2013, in or around the Agdao Public Market. The names are blacked out. The prosecution says the people killed were accused of selling drugs or of theft, and that the squad needed his “green light” before it killed anyone.

   His lawyer at the 2026 hearing called the squad “that fictitious construct.” The judges who confirmed the charges found substantial grounds to believe that he recruited police officers and hired gunmen into it in the late 1980s. That is a lower test than proof.

   Record 178-Red2 ¶ 25, p. 11 · Tr. T-004, 11:7–10, 39:7 · Record 417-Red ¶ 87

4. Jun 30, 2016

   He becomes president

   The next day the national police open an anti-drug campaign called Project Double Barrel. The prosecution says this is when the plan from Davao went national.

   In the campaign he had said that if he won he would order the police and the military to hunt down drug lords “and kill them,” a line the prosecution read to the judges. The police order that set up Double Barrel spoke of “neutralizing” drug suspects.

   What that word meant is one of the main fights in the case. The prosecution says it meant kill. The defense says it meant arrest or subdue, and that it was ordinary police vocabulary from before his time.

   Record 417-Red ¶¶ 88, 54 · Tr. T-004, 10:15 · Tr. T-006, 25:2–16, 26:16–21

5. Jul 2016 – Sept 2018

   The killings in counts two and three

   Forty incidents and 59 people, across the country. Count two is about people on a list of “high-value targets.” Count three is about police operations in neighborhoods.

   Five of the 59 are named in the public charges. Rolando Espinosa Sr. and Raul Yap were shot in a jail in Leyte on or about November 5, 2016. Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., the mayor of Ozamiz City, was killed with others early on July 30, 2017. Benjamin Visda was killed in Manila in October 2016. Kian Loyd delos Santos, who was 17, was killed in Caloocan City on or about August 16, 2017.

   The police reports on many of these deaths say the person fired first. The prosecution says those reports were falsified and that guns were planted. The defense says they are the only records made at the time and that nothing shows they are false.

   Record 178-Red2 pp. 12–14 · Tr. T-007, 11:1–15 · Tr. T-007, 20:15–22

6. Feb 8, 2018

   The Prosecutor opens a first look

   Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor at the time, announces a preliminary examination of the killings. It isn’t an investigation yet.

   A preliminary examination is the prosecutor’s office checking whether there is enough to ask for a real investigation. No judge is involved at this point.

   Seven years later the whole question of whether the court can hear this case comes down to whether this step counted as the court already “considering” the matter.

   Record 309 ¶ 2

7. Mar 17, 2018

   The Philippines gives notice that it is leaving

   Five weeks after the first look is announced. Under the treaty a withdrawal takes one year to count.

   He was president when the notice was given. The prosecution later told the judges he pulled the country out when he thought he might be prosecuted. His lawyers say it is the prosecution that has to answer for not opening an investigation inside that year.

   Record 309 ¶¶ 3, 36 · Tr. T-007, 25:19–22

8. Mar 17, 2019

   The withdrawal takes effect

   The Philippines is out of the court from this day, so the charges stop on March 16. Everything he is charged with happened above this line. Whether the court could still open a case about it from below the line is what his lawyers argued all the way to the appeals judges.

9. The investigation

   Asked for two years after the country left, paused when its government objected, and restarted.

10. May 24, 2021

    The Prosecutor asks to open an investigation

    Three years after the first look began, and two years after the Philippines left.

    When a prosecutor starts an investigation on their own, three judges have to approve it first. The request covered killings from November 1, 2011, to March 16, 2019, in Davao and then across the country. It was made public on June 14, 2021.

    Record 7-Red · ICC, case information sheet

11. Sept 15, 2021Granted

    Investigation authorized

    Three judges find a reasonable basis to investigate the “war on drugs” killings and the earlier ones in Davao.

    The decision said the court kept its power over crimes committed while the country was a member, even though it had since left. It gave the government’s own count of people killed in police anti-drug operations as 5,281 by February 2019, and cited estimates of 12,000 to 30,000 in all.

    Record 12 p. 41, ¶¶ 39, 67, 111

12. Nov 10, 2021

    The Philippines asks the court to step back

    The government says it is looking into the killings itself. The Prosecutor pauses his work.

    The court is meant to step in only when a country isn’t genuinely investigating or prosecuting the crimes itself. A country can ask for a deferral, which means the Prosecutor stands back in favor of its own investigation. The Prosecutor told the judges on November 18 that he had temporarily suspended his work while he looked at the request.

    Record 14 ¶¶ 1–3

13. Jun 24, 2022

    The Prosecutor asks to restart

    Karim Khan, now the chief prosecutor, tells the judges the deferral isn’t warranted.

    His term as president ended six days later, on June 30, 2022. The Philippine government filed its objections that September.

    Record 46 · Record 417-Red ¶ 79 · Record 51

14. Jan 26, 2023Granted

    Investigation restarts

    The judges are not satisfied that the Philippines is carrying out real investigations that cover the same ground.

    In their words, they were “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations, or is making a real or genuine effort to carry out such investigations.” The government appealed a week later.

    Record 56-Red pp. 41–42

15. Jul 18, 2023Dismissed

    The Philippines loses its appeal, 3 to 2

    Five appeals judges let the investigation go on. Two of them would have ended it because the country had already left.

    The government argued, among other things, that the court had no power over the Philippines once the withdrawal took effect. The majority said that point had not been properly raised and did not decide it.

    Judges Perrin de Brichambaut and Lordkipanidze dissented. They would have found that the court “cannot exercise its jurisdiction,” because the investigation was only asked for after the withdrawal. His own lawyers made the same argument two years later.

    Record 77 p. 4, ¶ 60 · Record 77-OPI · Tr. T-001

16. Oct 2024

    He tells the Senate he had a death squad

    At an inquiry committee of the Philippine Senate. The prosecution says he said it under oath, three times.

    The judges who later confirmed the charges wrote that the evidence about the squad was “consistent with Mr Duterte’s admission in October 2024, before an inquiry committee of the Senate of the Philippines, that he had an organised death squad in Davao City.”

    The prosecution played the hearings in court. His lawyer’s answer to the things he has said in public was that they were “hyperbole, bluster and rhetoric.”

    Record 417-Red ¶ 87 · Tr. T-007, 26:7–9 · Tr. T-004, 34:18

17. Arrest

    From a secret warrant to a courtroom in The Hague in seven days.

18. Feb 10, 2025

    The Prosecutor asks for an arrest warrant

    For murder, torture and rape as crimes against humanity. Filed in secret.

    The application set out five counts covering 45 acts of murder, four of torture and three of rape. A redacted copy was made public on March 13, 2025, the day before he first appeared in court.

    Record 80-Red p. 22 · Record 90 ¶ 4

19. Mar 7, 2025Granted in part

    Warrant issued, for murder only

    Three judges find reasonable grounds to believe he is responsible for at least 43 killings. They leave out torture and rape.

    The judges said the material was enough on the torture and the rape themselves, but that the link between those acts and the wider attack was “insufficiently shown.” The warrant covered at least 19 people killed by the Davao Death Squad and at least 24 killed by or under the supervision of police.

    They found an arrest was needed because he “appears to continue to wield considerable power.” The warrant was issued as secret and made public on March 11.

    Record 83 ¶¶ 12, 14, 26 · ICC, case information sheet

20. Mar 11, 2025

    Arrested in Manila

    Philippine authorities arrest him on the court’s warrant. He is flown to the Netherlands and handed to the court on March 12.

    The court has no police of its own, so it depends on countries to make arrests and to surrender the person. Here it was the Philippine government, under the president who followed him.

    His lawyer told the judges three days later that the plane had waited more than five hours in the United Arab Emirates on the way, and called the whole transfer “a pure and simple kidnapping.”

    ICC, case information sheet · Record 90 ¶ 6 · Tr. T-002, 7:8–23

21. Mar 14, 2025

    First appearance, by video

    He appears on a screen from the detention center, gives his name and date of birth, and hears the charge read. The judges set the next hearing for September 23.

    It took 25 minutes. The presiding judge said the hearing was “neither the start of the trial, nor is it a confirmation of charges hearing.” He attended by video because the court’s doctors advised against bringing him in after the journey.

    The lawyer in the room for him was Salvador Medialdea, who had been his executive secretary. He asked for a week’s delay and was refused. Four days later Nicholas Kaufman took over as lead counsel.

    Tr. T-002, 4:3–6, 9:1–5, 10:8–11 · Record 92-Red

22. Three ways to stop it

    Through 2025 his lawyers ask the judges to end the case, to release him, and to find him unfit for trial. The charges are filed in the middle of it.

23. May 1, 2025

    The defense says the court has no power here

    The Philippines had left by the time judges opened the investigation in 2021, so there was nothing for the court to act on.

    This is a challenge to jurisdiction, and it is about timing. The treaty says a country leaving doesn’t stop the court from carrying on with “any matter which was already under consideration by the Court” before the withdrawal took effect. The defense says a prosecutor’s first look is too informal to count, and that “the Court” means the judges, who were not asked for anything until 2021.

    It asked for every step in the case to be undone. The prosecution answered that a preliminary examination is exactly such a matter. The victims’ lawyers called the treaty’s wording “crystal clear.”

    Record 121 ¶¶ 116–117 · Record 146-Red-Corr · Record 145 ¶ 1

24. May 12, 2025

    Davao City elects him mayor

    While he is held in The Hague. One of his sons, elected vice mayor, does the job in his place.

    The judges later counted the result against him when he asked to be released. They wrote that the “continued support in the Philippines to Mr Duterte is further demonstrated by his election as mayor of Davao City in May 2025.”

    Record 282-Red ¶ 51 · Reporting: GMA News, Jul 1, 2025

25. Jun 12, 2025

    He asks to be released while he waits

    To a country whose name is blacked out, “under any conditions.” His lawyers say a man of 80 in poor health is not going to run.

    The request for interim release offered a list of conditions and made a humanitarian case. The prosecution opposed it. It said he “does not accept the legitimacy of the legal proceedings against him” and has the reach to get at witnesses.

    In July the defense asked the judges to hold off ruling while it gathered medical evidence, and two of the three agreed. It filed a renewed request with medical reports on August 18.

    Record 150-Red p. 16 · Record 159-Red p. 4 · Record 209 · Record 231-Red

26. Jul 4, 2025

    The charges are filed

    Three counts of crimes against humanity. Forty-nine incidents and 78 people, which the prosecution calls a sample of something much larger.

    Count one is the murder of 19 people in or around Davao City by the Davao Death Squad. Count two is the murder of 14 “high-value targets” in 2016 and 2017. Count three is the murder of 43 people and the attempted murder of two more in barangay police operations through 2018.

    The document says he is responsible in any of three ways: by committing the crimes with and through other people under a common plan, by ordering or inducing them, or by aiding them. It names eight officials as sharing the plan. The public first saw a blacked-out copy on September 22, 2025.

    Record 178-Red2 ¶¶ 4, 19, 25, p. 16

27. Aug 6, 2025

    The defense moves to take the chief prosecutor off the case

    Before Karim Khan was the Prosecutor, he had worked for victims of the same killings.

    The request was for his disqualification. In 2018, in private practice and without a fee, he had worked on a submission to the Prosecutor of the day about the Philippine killings. The defense said a prosecutor who had acted for victims of these events could not now be the one bringing the case over them.

    Record 226-Red2 · Record 286-Red p. 3

28. Aug 18, 2025

    The defense says he is not fit to stand trial

    It asks for the case to be put off with no end date, saying his memory and thinking have declined.

    The filing opens: he “is not fit to stand trial as a result of cognitive impairment in multiple domains.” Fitness means being able to understand the proceedings and to instruct your lawyers.

    The prosecution and the victims’ lawyers both opposed an open-ended delay. The prosecution accepted a short one so that doctors could examine him.

    Record 230-Red ¶ 1 · Record 253-Red · Record 257-Red2

29. Sept 8, 2025Granted in part

    Confirmation hearing postponed

    Two of three judges put off the September 23 hearing so that independent doctors can examine him.

    Judge Flores Liera dissented. The court appointed a panel of three experts, in forensic psychiatry, neuropsychology and neurology. The defense twice asked for a proposed expert to be removed and lost both times. The panel’s reports came in on December 5, 2025.

    Record 267 · Record 267-OPI-Red · Record 268 · Records 303-Red, 316-Red, 327-Red

30. Sept 26, 2025Denied

    Release refused

    The judges find all three risks the law asks about: that he would flee, that witnesses could be interfered with, and that the crimes could continue.

    On flight they pointed to the arrest having been called “a pure and simple kidnapping” on his behalf, to his political contacts, to his daughter being vice president, and to his election as mayor. They also wrote that “the issue of fitness to stand trial is factually and legally distinct from the question of interim release.”

    Judges have looked at his detention again three times since, in January, May and September 2026, and kept him in custody each time.

    Record 282-Red ¶¶ 50–53, 64 · Records 357-Red, 447, 506

31. Oct 2, 2025Granted

    The chief prosecutor is taken off the case

    Appeals judges say a reasonable observer could see an appearance of bias. They don’t find that he was biased, and the case goes on under his deputy.

    The judges called his earlier involvement “significantly intense and multifaceted” and noted that people connected to it are now prosecution witnesses. The test was whether “a fair-minded and reasonable observer could conclude that there is a reasonable appearance of bias.”

    The decision is dated October 2 and was made public on October 15. Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang has led the case since.

    Record 286-Red pp. 16–18

32. Oct 23, 2025Denied

    The court says it has power over the case

    The first look began in February 2018, before the withdrawal took effect, and the judges hold that this is enough.

    They agreed with the defense on one thing. Ordinarily a country has to be a member at the moment the court’s power is used. What saves this case is the treaty’s rule on leaving: “any matter” is broad, “under consideration” doesn’t name a stage, and the matter here was “the allegations of crimes committed in the Philippines.”

    So the court’s rules go on applying to this case “as if the Philippines were still a Party” for crimes from before March 17, 2019. The defense appealed.

    Record 309 ¶¶ 76–77, 80, 84 · Record 319

33. Nov 28, 2025Dismissed

    Appeal on release dismissed

    Five appeals judges, unanimous, read out in open court. He stays in the court’s detention center.

    Three of the five judges were on the bench for the reading and two were away. His lawyer told them he was absent with the court’s leave “but very much present in spirit.”

    Record 326-Red p. 3 · Tr. T-003, 1:22–25, 2:7–9

34. Jan 26, 2026Denied

    Found fit to take part

    With the three doctors’ reports in, the judges refuse the open-ended delay and set the hearing on the charges for February 23.

    Fitness, they wrote, is a legal question that “does not depend, in and of itself, on whether the suspect has particular medical conditions,” and working through complicated evidence “is the role of defence counsel.” The defense itself did not dispute that he understands what a criminal case is and what he is charged with.

    The medical findings are blacked out in the public version. The judges refused to question the experts in court, and on February 13 they refused leave to appeal.

    Record 356-Red ¶¶ 19–20, 37, p. 25 · Record 376

35. The charges are tested

    February to April 2026. Four days in court, and then two rulings a day apart.

36. Feb 13, 2026

    539 victims are let into the case

    They aren’t a side and they don’t bring the charges. One team of three lawyers speaks for all of them.

    At this court people harmed by the charged crimes can apply to take part, which lets their lawyers file papers and speak in court. The judges let victims in by two decisions, on January 26 and February 13, 2026, and the court’s own count is 539.

    Their lawyers are Joel Butuyan, Gilbert Andres and Paolina Massidda, the principal counsel of the court’s own office for victims. The defense asked for the first two to be removed, and the judges refused.

    Records 358, 375 · ICC, case information sheet · Record 390-Red

37. Feb 18, 2026

    He gives up his right to attend

    A signed waiver for the hearing on the charges. The judges accept it two days later, over objections from the prosecution and the victims’ lawyers.

    The judges found that he understood the right and what giving it up meant. The victims’ lawyer told the court the next week that his clients felt “very deep disappointment” at not seeing him hear the charges read. He also waived the detention hearing that followed.

    Record 383 · Record 387 ¶¶ 5–6 · Tr. T-004, 18:1–5 · Record 395

38. Feb 23, 2026

    The hearing on the charges opens

    The charges are read out in his absence, and each side makes an opening statement.

    A confirmation hearing is where judges decide if there is enough for a trial. Deputy Prosecutor Niang said the 49 incidents were “merely a fraction” of the killing. Joel Butuyan spoke for the victims.

    Nicholas Kaufman, for the defense, called the charges “grievously misplaced and politically motivated” and said his client “maintains his innocence absolutely.” The prosecution then began on count one.

    Tr. T-004, 9:14–19, 38:14–17, 41:19–20

39. Feb 24, 2026

    The prosecution lays out its case

    Counts two and three, the wider attack on civilians, and how it says he is responsible. The victims’ lawyers follow.

    It showed a list of targets on which the two men shot in the Leyte jail are marked “neutralised” on the day they died. It showed a map built on an outside group’s count of at least 5,823 anti-drug killings while he was president.

    It said police reports were “repeatedly falsified” to pass the operations off as self-defense. Paolina Massidda and Gilbert Andres then spoke for the victims.

    Tr. T-005, 9:18–10:10, 12:17–22, 21:8–16, 34:24

40. Feb 26, 2026

    The defense answers

    A full day. No plan to kill, no order from him, and witnesses who can’t be believed.

    Kaufman said “neutralise” in the police order means lawful restraint, and that the Philippine Supreme Court has never read it as kill. He said the prosecution’s main witnesses are “self-confessed murderers” who talked in return for what amounts to immunity.

    He also said that of 4,817 names on the target list, 248 were marked neutralized, which he put at a 5 percent chance and not a certainty. Part of the day was held in closed session.

    Tr. T-006, 25:9–26:15, 43:1–8, 46:9–18

41. Feb 27, 2026

    Closing arguments, and a detention hearing

    Each side sums up. The judges then hold the yearly hearing on whether he stays in custody.

    Julian Nicholls, for the prosecution, said the defense’s attack on the evidence “sounded like a closing argument after a trial,” and that deciding which witness to believe is what a trial is for. Kaufman said “he murdered no one.”

    Gilbert Andres closed for the victims. The hearing on the charges ended at 2:38 p.m. and the detention hearing took about twenty minutes after it.

    Tr. T-007, 20:10–14, 51:6–9, 55:13

42. Apr 22, 2026Dismissed

    Appeals judges uphold the court’s power, 4 to 1

    A preliminary examination “qualifies as a ‘matter under consideration.’” One judge disagrees in part.

    Judge Lordkipanidze wrote that a matter is under consideration only once judges have authorized an investigation, and that one year “is sufficient for the Prosecutor” to get that far. He would have ruled for the defense on that point. He had said the same in 2023.

    This was the last way to end the case on this question before trial.

    Record 415 pp. 5–6 · Record 415-OPI pp. 2–3 · Tr. T-008

43. Apr 23, 2026Confirmed

    All three counts confirmed

    Unanimous. Three judges find substantial grounds to believe the charges and send him to trial.

    The decision confirmed every count on all three ways of being responsible. On the self-defense language in his speeches, it said the same speeches “included explicit instructions to carry out unlawful killings.” On the disputed word, it said there is enough evidence that “‘neutralise’ meant ‘to kill’ in the context of the present case.”

    It also said whether the witnesses can be believed “can only be properly addressed at trial,” and that the 49 incidents are examples to which more can be added with fair notice. The defense asked for leave to appeal and was refused on May 21.

    Record 417-Red pp. 49–50, ¶¶ 24, 28, 53–54 · Record 445

44. Toward trial

    New judges, new defense lawyers, and seven months to get ready.

45. Apr 24, 2026

    Trial judges are named

    The court forms Trial Chamber III: Judges Joanna Korner, Keebong Paek and Nicolas Guillou. Korner is elected to preside on April 29.

    The three judges who confirmed the charges step away at this point. A different three hear the trial and decide the verdict. There is no jury at this court.

    Record 420 · Record 421

46. May 15, 2026

    A new defense team

    Both of his lawyers leave within a week. Peter Haynes KC takes over as lead counsel, with Kate Gibson.

    The filings say the change was his own wish, to reorganize his team for the trial. Dov Jacobs asked to withdraw on May 7 and Nicholas Kaufman on May 8, and the judges allowed both.

    Nearly everything the defense had said in court up to this point was said by the team that left.

    Record 429 ¶ 2 · Record 435 ¶¶ 3–4 · Records 441, 443

47. May 27, 2026

    Trial date set for November 30

    The first status conference before the trial judges. The prosecution gets until August 31 to file its trial brief and add incidents.

    Judge Korner said the trial “will run on a daily basis until the judicial recess or thereabouts.” Haynes said his worry was “what the parameters of this trial are.” The victims’ lawyer said her clients “would like this trial to start tomorrow.”

    Two days earlier the defense had asked for a new medical examination. The judges sent him back to the same three experts.

    Tr. T-009, 46:12–15, 27:25, 7:24 · Record 450-Red · Record 462-Red

48. Jun 23, 2026

    Second status conference

    A short one. The judge says only one of the victims’ three lawyers will question any witness.

    The prosecution asked for one more week to answer the medical reports and got it. Judge Korner told Haynes his client had been excused only because the hearing was short. Haynes answered that his client was “fully aware that you’ll expect to see him sooner rather than later.”

    Tr. T-010, 1:19–25, 3:1–5

49. Sept 4, 2026

    The trial brief, and eight more incidents

    A 143-page outline of what the prosecution says it will prove. With it come eight incidents that were not in the confirmed charges.

    A trial brief sets out a side’s case before the evidence starts. This one says the evidence “will prove beyond reasonable doubt” that he is responsible on all three counts. The eight new incidents were announced on August 31, six under count three and two under count two.

    Record 490-Red ¶ 1 · Record 519-Red ¶ 47

50. Sept 11, 2026

    The defense challenges the shape of the charges

    Two motions. The charges are too open-ended to defend against, and the eight new incidents amount to changing them without a judge’s say.

    The first, filed August 31, asked the trial judges to send the charges back to be redrawn with “an exhaustive list” of acts. The second said adding incidents three months before trial was amending the charges “with no judicial oversight.” The prosecution and the victims’ lawyers opposed both.

    Record 487 ¶ 21 · Record 502-Red ¶¶ 1–3 · Records 499, 504-Corr-Red, 498

51. Sept 16, 2026

    He comes to court in person

    The third status conference, and by the reporting of the day the first time he has sat in the courtroom. Its transcript isn’t public yet.

    Later filings cite the session for the hearing equipment tried out for him there and for the talk about how long the court should sit each day. The fight over the prosecution’s disclosure was argued too.

    The same day the judges reviewed his detention and kept him in custody. They wrote that with a trial date set, the prospect of “a lengthy prison sentence” had grown.

    Reporting: VERA Files, Sept 16, 2026 · Record 509-Red ¶¶ 39, 41 · Record 506 ¶ 8

52. Sept 25, 2026

    The defense says the evidence came in a state it can’t use

    62,130 items, most of them handed over since June. It asks for the prosecution’s file to be cut to about 10,000.

    The motion says fewer than 5,000 of the items contain the word “Duterte” even once, and complains of loose single pages, unreadable scans and missing translations.

    The prosecution answered that most of the volume is one set of police records of the deaths, that counting a search word “is in no way indicative of the relevance of evidence,” and that a cap would be arbitrary. The defense replied on October 9. No ruling yet.

    Record 507-Red ¶ 2, ¶ 10 · Record 510-Red ¶¶ 2–3, 20 · Record 516-Red

53. Sept 28, 2026

    Found fit to stand trial

    The same three doctors find no worsening. The judges say he can follow the trial and instruct his lawyers, with adjustments.

    The panel reported “no new evidence that alters our joint opinion” and that he “remains physically frail.” It had reservations about his test scores, which it said showed inconsistencies it could not explain medically. The defense said he “suffers from significant memory impairment” and asked to question the experts. That was refused.

    He will get hearing support and a nurse at breaks, and sitting hours will be decided as the trial goes. The decision was made public on October 8.

    Record 509-Red ¶¶ 19–23, 25, 38–41, p. 17

54. Oct 9, 2026Granted in part

    Seven new incidents in, one out

    The trial judges refuse to send the charges back. They strike the one new incident that falls outside the dates of its count.

    Count two runs “between around July 2016 and July 2017,” and the judges said the prosecution “cannot now be permitted to broaden the temporal scope” it set for itself. So the trial covers 56 incidents.

    Witnesses on the new ones are not to be called until the defense has had “reasonable time to prepare.” The prosecution was told to update its brief and lists by October 16. It did, with the struck incident, number 57, cut from its brief and marked “[DELETED].” It kept that incident’s evidence on its lists, saying it still bears on the wider attack and on his responsibility.

    Record 519-Red ¶¶ 37, 47, 50–52, p. 18 · Record 522-Red ¶¶ 3–4

55. Oct 13, 2026

    Back in the courtroom

    The fourth status conference, and the second time he sits in the courtroom. The presiding judge sets out the trial’s hours: four one-hour sittings a day, because doctors advised he not sit for longer.

    The judges pressed the prosecution on the size of its evidence, about 5,000 documents, newspaper clippings among them. Haynes complained that “over 18,000” items of data had been “literally dumped” on the defense. The transcript is confidential, and a later defense filing cites it for the judges’ wish to keep the hours of live hearing down.

    The same day, the victims’ lawyers’ trial brief, 108 pages, was made public with parts blacked out.

    Reporting: Rappler, Oct 13, 2026 · GMA News, Oct 13, 2026 · Record 525-Red ¶ 2 · Record 515-Red

56. Oct – Nov 2026

    Statements in place of testimony

    Request after request to put witnesses’ earlier recorded statements into evidence, so less of the trial has to be heard live. By November 4 there are fourteen.

    There are two kinds. Under one rule the witness still comes to court, confirms the statement and can be questioned by the defense, which saves telling the whole story from the start. Under the other the statement goes in without the witness at all. That’s only allowed for evidence that isn’t about what the accused himself did.

    One of them, filed October 21, is for an expert report by a witness called P-1400. On November 6 the prosecution also handed in an updated list of its witnesses, marking the ones it expects to testify by video link, as the judges had ordered. It said it foresees no problems with that.

    Records 520-Red, 521-Red, 527-Red · ICC, eleventh request · Record 546 ¶¶ 1–3

57. Oct 26 – Nov 6, 2026

    The defense picks the witnesses it wants to question

    It doesn’t fight most of the requests. It wants the witnesses who speak to a charged killing, or to him, in court where it can cross-examine them.

    It said it was “mindful” of the judges’ wish to keep the hearing hours down and wouldn’t oppose a statement unless something in it needed asking in court. But it wants to cross-examine a witness who gathered information about one of the charged killings, and it says another witness’s interview is about Duterte’s own conduct, so it can’t come in without that witness.

    It took no position on three more statements, but objected to documents attached to them that the witnesses never explain. On November 6 it opposed the expert report: the prosecution never put it on its list of evidence or asked permission to add it. It doesn’t object in principle to expert reports coming in this way. The judges haven’t ruled on any of it.

    Record 525-Red ¶¶ 1–4 · Record 529-Red ¶¶ 1–2 · Record 541-Red ¶¶ 1–2

58. Nov 2, 2026

    The last status conference, without him

    He signs a waiver to stay away, and the judges accept it. Once the trial starts, the presiding judge says, they’ll expect him in court every day.

    Judge Korner told Haynes that he “need not attend this morning,” but “once the actual trial starts, we will expect, as we said, attendance on a daily basis.” The waiver left his lawyers to deal with everything on the agenda.

    The trial opens with statements from the prosecution, about four to six hours, and from the victims’ lawyers, about three. The judges refused the victims’ lawyers’ request to quote victims in Tagalog: everything must be in English, one of the court’s two working languages. Asked whether the defense would outline its case at the start, Haynes said it was “more likely than not” that he would.

    The prosecution has 150 hours for its evidence, and about 29 of its witnesses will testify by video link. The court keeps the hours set in October, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in The Hague, which is 5 to 11 at night in the Philippines. The transcript isn’t public yet.

    Record 538 ¶¶ 1–3 · Reporting: Rappler, Nov 2, 2026 · VERA Files, Nov 3, 2026

59. Nov 8, 2026 · the record ends

    Trial opens November 30, 2026

    • Sept 2026The defense’s motion on the prosecution’s disclosure, undecided
    • Oct 30The defense’s statement of what it disputes was due. It isn’t public
    • Oct–NovFourteen requests to use recorded statements, undecided
    • Nov 30Opening statements, with him in the courtroom

    No witness has testified yet. The defense’s statement of what it disputes hasn’t been made public, so the case his present lawyers mean to run is still known only from their motions. A trial here needs proof beyond reasonable doubt, which is a higher test than either of the two the prosecution has passed so far.

Read as a whole, he has lost every ruling that could have stopped the case before trial: on the court’s power, on his detention, and on his fitness. What he has won is narrower. The chief prosecutor was removed, the hearing on the charges was delayed five months for medical exams, and one incident was struck. None of it goes to whether the charges are true. That question has not been heard yet.