The prosecution at the International Criminal Court has asked the trial chamber judges to reject a motion by former president Rodrigo Duterte’s defense lawyers to cap the volume of evidence in his crime against humanity case.
In a response dated Oct. 5, acting Prosecutor Maame Mandaye Niang opposed the defense request to reduce the prosecution’s disclosed evidence from 62,130 items to 10,000, saying that doing so would require the removal of a dataset highly relevant to the case.
“Forcing the prosecution to remove a dataset that directly supports the contextual elements of its case would more severely hinder the search for the truth in this case,” Niang said.
During the third status conference and in a separate filing, defense lead counsel Peter Haynes raised concerns about the large volume and alleged poor quality of evidence submitted by the prosecution.
Niang, however, said the large volume of evidence is reasonable considering the scope of the charges against Duterte, which covers drug war killings allegedly committed from 2011 to 2019.
“The dataset is large because it records the deaths of the thousands of individuals killed by the PNP in anti-illegal drug operations, as well as the deaths of other drug personalities, while Mr. Duterte was President,” the document read.
The prosecution said the dataset would help establish the “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population,” one of the contextual elements it must prove.
It also argued that the volume of evidence was comparable to that in other cases before the court.
The prosecution further disputed the defense’s claims that some items contain floating pages, are illegible, lack translations and transcripts, or contain incorrect metadata, saying the complaints were inaccurate.
“The examples provided by the defense are replete with mischaracterizations, and leave the impression that the defense has spent more time searching for problems to present to the chamber than commencing a proper review of the material in order to prepare for trial,” it said.
Defense declined proposals
For its part, the prosecution had proposed several measures to help the defense review the evidence, including appointing an expert to analyze the dataset and providing the materials through a separate platform and format.
They also recommended six agreed facts that would have allowed the removal of 42,511 items from the case record, but the defense declined the proposals, according to the filing.
“The defense has repeatedly demonstrated its reluctance to begin this work in earnest despite significant assistance from the prosecution that goes well beyond the scope of its obligations,” it said.
Trial Chamber III has yet to issue a decision on the submissions made by the prosecution and the defense.
Aside from the motions on evidence, the chamber is also expected to rule on whether Duterte is fit to stand his trial scheduled to begin on Nov. 30.
