Philippines president says ‘no intention’ to rejoin ICC

MANILA: The Philippines has no plan to rejoin the International Criminal Court (ICC), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said Monday, with the tribunal’s prosecutor seeking to resume a probe into ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war.

“The Philippines has no intention of rejoining the ICC,” Marcos Jr told reporters, after previously indicating he would not cooperate with the investigation.

Duterte pulled the Philippines out of the ICC in 2019 after it launched a preliminary probe into his drugs crackdown, which killed many thousands of people.

ICC judges authorised a full investigation into the anti-narcotics campaign last September, saying it resembled an illegitimate and systematic attack on civilians.

It suspended the probe two months later, after Manila said it was looking into the alleged crimes itself.

But ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said in June that the request by Manila to defer the probe was unjustified and that it should restart “as quickly as possible”.

Marcos Jr, who backed the drug war, was elected president by a landslide in May with the help of an alliance with Duterte’s daughter, Sara, who won the vice presidential race.

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