Palace helps cook ‘Big Fish’
“ Khan’s request for a warrant was triggered by a statement from the government ‘two weeks before’ of its willingness to arrest Duterte if an order came through the International Criminal Police Organization.
Daily Tribune“ Khan’s request for a warrant was triggered by a statement from the government ‘two weeks before’ of its willingness to arrest Duterte if an order came through the International Criminal Police Organization.
The first salvo of the defense during the initial proceeding of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the crime against humanity complaint against former President Rodrigo Duterte was a blast from former Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea who suggested a conspiracy.
The Marcos administration and those who profess to have a full grasp of the situation predictably laughed it off and dismissed it.
Medialdea told Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc during Duterte’s initial appearance hearing that “two troubled entities struck an unlikely alliance,” and cited “a troubled legal institution subject to delegitimization and desperate for price cuts and a legal show,” which was obviously the ICC.
It appears that Medialdea did not pluck the revelation out of thin air as Lucy Gaynor, a PhD Researcher at the University of Amsterdam and an expert on international crime cases, exposed a so-called “Big Fish” operation initiated by Prosecutor Karim Khan to build up the image of the ICC with Duterte as the test case.
Gaynor cited “the successful execution of (an ICC) warrant which almost nobody knew about” to fire off the strategy against Duterte.
On 10 February 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor submitted an “urgent application” for an arrest warrant against Duterte, accusing him of five counts of crimes against humanity, committed in the context of his “war on drugs” first as mayor of Davao City and after 2016 as president of the country.
According to Gaynor, Khan’s request for a warrant was triggered by a statement from the Philippine government “two weeks before” of its willingness to arrest Duterte if an order came through the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
It was stated in an ICC document, narrating the timeline of the actions taken to put Duterte under custody, that the comment about coursing the arrest through Interpol presented an opening for the ICC to serve the warrant. The document cited the risk that over time, “the prospects for arresting Duterte will likely disappear.”
It was at that instance that Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang asked for the warrant to be issued “under seal.” Gaynor recounted that it was only a month later, after Duterte had been taken into custody, that the existence of a warrant for him was confirmed by the chamber.
Based on the chronology of events, the warrant was sent “three days before his effective arrest,” debunking the claim of the enablers of Duterte’s arrest that it was received on the morning of 11 March, the day he was taken into custody by the Philippine National Police.
Duterte’s arrest was the shiny trophy Khan and the ICC had been chasing with their “Big Fish” strategy that seeks to prove the court remains relevant. And Duterte fit the bill, a high-profile catch that Khan needed to show the world the ICC means business.
The ICC has been mocked for years as slow and weak, and stuck on prosecuting mostly African tribal leaders.
Getting Duterte, a former head of state, into custody in The Hague is a victory the ICC can wave around, particularly since the Philippines withdrew from the ICC years ago.
Khan has long been working for an ICC redemption. Gaynor recalled that in May 2024, Khan stood behind a podium, flanked by two colleagues in front of a blue ICC backdrop, and announced that “today I am filing applications for warrants of arrest” for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three senior Hamas leaders: Yahya Sinwar, Mohamed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh.
The Hamas targets have all died in the Gaza conflict while Netanyahu and Gallant are likely not ever to come under ICC’s authority.
Khan’s official video statement on Duterte was markedly different. Apparently seated, with no colleagues nearby, he talked into a camera: “Well, the arrest [of Duterte]… is an important moment.” Unlike the other announcements, this was made after the arrest.
Whether it’s Duterte or somebody else, the act of the Marcos administration of surrendering an accused to a foreign court inflicts a stinging slap on the face of the judiciary.
Worse, colluding with Khan in the “Big Fish” operation, and now hiding it, borders on treason.
