Philippine lawyer accuses Duterte of 'mass murder' at ICC

A Philippine lawyer today filed a complaint at the world's only permanent war crimes court against President Rodrigo Duterte, alleging his war on drugs has caused some 8,000 deaths.

Lawyer Jude Sabio urged the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate Duterte and senior adminstration officials and bring charges of crimes against humanity against them for "the terrifying and gruesome situation of continuing mass murder in the Philippines".

Sabio, who is the lawyer for Duterte's confessed hitman Edgar Matobato, alleged the president "began his strategy or system of eliminating or killing persons suspected of crimes, including drug addicts and pushers" when he became mayor of Davao City in 1988.

"The 'repeated, unchanging and continuous' mass murder being conducted by the President Duterte has already resulted into the deaths of not less than 1,400 individuals in Davao City under his Davao Death Squad and not less than 7,000 individuals in his war on drugs at the national level," the filing said.

Sabio travelled to The Hague to hand over his 77-page complaint in person to the office of ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Bensouda's office confirmed to

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