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The Philippines arrested former president Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday at the request of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a major move in the global body's investigation into thousands of deaths during his "war on drugs", which defined his presidency, Reuters reported. If he is taken to The Hague, he could be the first former head of state in Asia to face trial at the ICC.
The ICC is an international court established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression when member countries cannot or will not do so themselves.
The court can prosecute crimes committed by citizens of member countries or within their territories by anyone. It has 125 member countries. The court's 2025 budget is about 195 million euros ($202 million).
According to Reuters, ICC judges have delivered 11 guilty verdicts and 4 acquittals. Twenty-one people are currently held at the ICC's detention center in The Hague and have appeared in court, while 30 are still fugitives. Charges have been dropped against seven individuals due to their deaths.
Of the 11 convictions, only six were for the core crimes of the court, namely war crimes and crimes against humanity. The others were for offenses such as interfering with witnesses. The six convicted individuals are all African militia leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and Uganda. Their sentences range from nine to 30 years in prison. The maximum sentence that can be given is life imprisonment.
Here are the names of leaders most sought after by the ICC:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is accused of criminal actions, including murder, persecution, and using starvation as a weapon of war in the Gaza conflict.
Israeli leaders have rejected the decision, calling it "anti-Semitic" and stating that the allegations are baseless and false. Arresting Netanyahu is considered unlikely, as Israel has strong support from the United States and most European countries.
The U.S. has even imposed sanctions against the ICC. President Donald Trump accused the world court of engaging in unlawful and groundless actions targeting America and his close ally, Israel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023, accusing him of war crimes for illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
The Kremlin called the move meaningless and has repeatedly denied allegations that its forces committed atrocities during the invasion of its neighboring country, Ukraine. Putin is the third sitting president to receive an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
Russia is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. Like Israeli Netanyahu, arresting Putin is considered difficult, as he only travels to allied countries, such as North Korea and Mongolia, which refuse to arrest him.
Former Sudanese President Omar Bashir
Council on Foreign Relations reported in March 2009 that the ICC indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for orchestrating mass violence, including murder, torture, and rape, against non-Arab ethnic groups in the Darfur region since 2003. He is the first sitting president of a country to be indicted by the ICC.
Sudan, which is not a party to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the court, has not surrendered him. The African Union (AU) also rejected the arrest warrant, citing the ICC's bias against African countries, and called on member states not to arrest Bashir if he is accepted into their country.
In April 2019, after months of public protests, the Sudanese military forced Bashir to resign and arrested him, although they said they would not hand him over to the ICC. The military stated that the former dictator was moved from prison to a military hospital in April of last year.
Ugandan Warlord Joseph Kony
Kony, the founder and leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is the ICC's longest-standing fugitive. An arrest warrant was issued for him in 2005.
ICC judges made an unusual decision earlier this year to allow prosecutors to try him in his absence for the charges against him.
Prosecutors want to charge Kony with 36 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, the use of child soldiers, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and forced pregnancy.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011, along with his father, who was captured and killed in October of that year.
A few days after his father's death, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was captured by fighters from Zintan, where he was held until he was released under an amnesty law in 2017.
In recent years, he has tried to run for president in Libya's elections, which were postponed in 2021 and have not been held since.
In a strange twist, the current ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, was Saif's defense lawyer at the ICC for over a year until he resigned in 2018. Khan became the ICC's chief prosecutor in 2021.
Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo
Laurent Gbagbo became the first former head of state to be tried at the ICC for crimes against humanity committed in 2010 and 2011. An estimated three thousand people were killed after Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in the national elections and step down.
Gbagbo was arrested in April 2011 during a French and UN military intervention, and he faced four charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and rape. Gbagbo's trial, which was initially planned for June 2012, was delayed after his defense team said he was ill due to "cruel and inhuman treatment" in detention.
The trial eventually started in 2016, and Gbagbo was found not guilty in 2019 due to insufficient evidence. In 2021, the ICC Appeals Chamber confirmed the acquittal.
Editor’s Choice: Former President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte Arrested: What's His Crime?
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