On the third day of the confirmation hearing on the crimes against humanity charges against former President Rodrigo Duterte, lead defense counsel Nicholas Kaufman demolished the integrity of the main witnesses and the narration on the so-called Common Plan.

The prosecution delved into a conspiracy, which it termed the Common Plan, which was supposedly the systematic state-sanctioned killing of thousands in Duterte’s signature war on drugs.

The claimed scenario was an extension of the yarn that putschist Antonio Trillanes IV and his cohorts attributed to his nemesis, the former president.

Kaufman, apparently referring to the Trillanes pawns Edgar Matobato and Arthur Lascanas, said in his presentation that the prosecution’s star witnesses were confessed murderers.

Most of the two’s statements were taken by the prosecution’s investigators with the assurance of their limited use, namely, that anything self-incriminating would not be used against them in the proceedings.

“I do not think that I would be alone either in believing that there is something morally repugnant or even questionable from a public policy standpoint to shield not only one but several murderers from prosecution at the ICC in an attempt to just nail Duterte,” Kaufman indicated.

He reminded the tribunal that in many “common law jurisdictions, the use of a self-avowed murderer to convict an alleged murderer would normally entail vetting and scrutiny of the highest order.”

Even after the vetting process, most courts require supporting evidence before relying solely on the testimony of a cooperating criminal witness, also known as an accomplice witness.

“Such an evidentiary supplement in legal parliament is called corroboration, and rules exist governing what may be deemed suitable corroboration. At least two of the most prominent accomplice witnesses were offered up to the prosecution on a silver platter, and I cannot say by whom in open session,” Kaufman said.

The Rome Statute, which created the ICC, regulates the presentation of limited-use statements.

Regarding the “Common Plan,” Kaufman assailed the bases the Prosecution cited, which were excerpts from 2016 media interviews of former Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa and former justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, “which suited their purpose and case theory.”

Disregarded were the unequivocal comments in the same interviews, which Kaufman said destroyed the case against Duterte.

The selective use of statements culled from Duterte’s men was similar to people reviewing the prosecution’s massive databases for suitable evidence through a Google keyword search.

“Most likely, some of the most utilized operands were the words kill and perhaps neutralization or neutralize. Once the member of the prosecutor’s staff has his hit, he excises the excerpt, rejoices that he can slot it into the predetermined case theory and does not bother to read the rest of the item of evidence, where the exonerating evidence is unequivocal,” Kaufman said, breaking down the likely process in the gathering of evidence against his client.

In Kaufman’s discourse, the case against Duterte should more appropriately be slander rather than mass murder.

“None of the speeches imputed to the former president nor the use of what the prosecution calls dehumanizing language by the alleged co-perpetrators suggests criminality,” he said.

He said it is within the bounds of “acceptable, albeit extreme, political discourse to refer to drug users in a way as beasts, animals, or to the barangays as being plagued by the drug menace. Well, the last one is true.”

He assessed that the prosecution was at a loss “if this is its circumstantial evidence for proving the existence of a common criminal plan.”

The fabricated “common plan” was also based on the names created for the two police operations, “Double Barrel” and “Tokhang,” along with their supposed evocation of metaphors for firearms, the defense lawyer said.

Clutching at straws best describes the desperate effort of the prosecution to bring Duterte to a lengthy trial, some say of eight to 10 years.

Forcing a trial would mean the goal of forever removing the fiery leader from the political equation would have been achieved.