Duterte refused fingerprinting and threatened lawsuits during chaotic arrest, Philippine police say

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte checks the scope of a Chinese-made CS/LR4A sniper rifle during the presentation of thousands of rifles and ammunition by China to the Philippines at Clark Airbase in northern Philippines on June 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

MANILA, Philippines — Ex-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened a police general with lawsuits, refused to be fingerprinted and told law enforcers “you have to kill me to bring me to The Hague” in a tense confrontation after his arrest in Manila that was ordered by the International Criminal Court, a Philippine police general said Thursday.

Police Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre provided details for the first time of Tuesday’s 12-hour standoff at a Philippine air base before he and other police officers managed to bring the 79-year-old former leader onto a government-chartered jet that took him to The Hague, Netherlands, where he was detained by the global court on charges of crimes against humanity.

ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said Thursday in a text message to reporters that Duterte had arrived at the court’s detention center near the Dutch North Sea coast after undergoing medical checks.

No date has yet been announced for Duterte’s first appearance before ICC judges.

Duterte’s reversal of fortune

Duterte was once feared for his brutal anti-crime crackdowns and reviled for his irreverence while in office -- he called Pope Francis a “son of a bitch” at one time and said that U.S. President Barack Obama could “go to hell.”

Duterte’s stunning reversal of fortune has been celebrated by human rights groups as a historic triumph against state impunity, while his supporters have slammed what they call the current government’s surrendering of a rival to a court whose jurisdiction they dispute.

Duterte was arrested Tuesday after he arrived at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport with his common-law wife, daughter and friends from Hong Kong.

He was later taken under heavy police guard to a nearby presidential lounge at the Villamor Air Base to undergo booking for arrested criminal suspects, including fingerprinting, before being taken to a plane for the long flight to The Hague to be turned over to the ICC, Torre said.

But Duterte, his family, lawyers and friends resisted and prevented the former leader from being brought to a Gulfstream G550 executive jet, according to Torre.

A tense half-day impasse

The standoff lasted for about 12 hours, Torre said.

“It was very tense,” Torre told The Associated Press. “One of my officers sustained a head injury after being hit hard with a cellphone” by Duterte’s common-law wife “and his daughter was cursing me with expletives, but I kept my cool.”

The ex-president, who used to be a government prosecutor and congressman, refused to undergo the police booking procedure after his arrest, Torre said.

“We wanted to have him fingerprinted, but he resisted,” Torre said. In a separate interview, he said that he arrested and handcuffed the former president’s executive secretary for blocking Duterte’s transfer to the plane.

Torre confirmed to the AP the authenticity of a video that has gone viral on social media showing Duterte surrounded by his family, lawyers and friends and asking Torre, who led the arresting officers, “Are you going to bring me straight to the airplane?”

“You have to kill me to bring me to The Hague,” Torre quoted Duterte as saying.

“That’s not our intention sir,” Torre said as his men dragged away one of several men surrounding Duterte.

Duterte’s legal team challenges his arrest

Duterte’s lawyers said that Philippine authorities didn’t show any copy of the ICC warrant and violated his constitutional rights.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.‘s administration allowed the global court to take custody of Duterte, although the Philippines was no longer a party to the ICC, the legal team said.

“Our own government has surrendered a Filipino citizen -- even a former president at that -- to foreign powers,” Vice President Sara Duterte, the ex-president’s daughter and a political rival of the current president, said Tuesday before her father was flown out of Manila.

“This is a blatant affront to our sovereignty and an insult to every Filipino who believes in our nation’s independence,” she said. “This is not justice -- this is oppression and persecution,” she said.

Marcos appeared on nationwide television around midnight shortly after Duterte was flown out and denied the allegations of the vice president, who has had a bitter falling out with him after their whirlwind political alliance as running mates in the 2022 elections crumbled.

Duterte predicts his fate

In Hong Kong, Duterte told a gathering of flag-waving followers Sunday before he flew back to Manila that he was aware that an ICC warrant for his arrest has been issued and added he was ready to be locked up. “If this is my fate in life, it’s OK, I’ll accept it. I can’t do anything if I get arrested and jailed,” he said in an expletives-laced speech.

Duterte carved a political name decades ago with his violent approach to criminality and his profanities, which became a trademark of his political persona especially when threatening to kill drugs dealers as part of his war on illegal drugs that left thousands dead in his long years in power.

While president, Duterte got incensed when Obama criticized his bloody campaign against illegal drugs and told him in one speech to “go to hell.”

In 2015, he shocked the dominant Roman Catholic Church when he fired off an expletive while expressing his disgust over a monstrous traffic jam that trapped him while Francis was visiting Manila.

“I wanted to call. `Pope, you son of a bitch, go home.' Don’t visit here anymore,” he told a mob of supporters, some of whom laughed.

He later apologized after Filipino bishops expressed shock and outrage.

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By Jim Gomez

Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.