Maria Elena Vignoli, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the warrant, calling it “another blow to the wall of impunity protecting those who allegedly committed atrocities during the Philippines’ murderous ‘drug war.’”
She called on Philippine authorities to swiftly detain dela Rosa and send him to the court in The Hague.
Duterte was arrested in March last year and detained in the Netherlands on charges of crimes against humanity. The charges are also linked to deadly anti-drugs crackdowns he ordered while he was in office. He denies the charges, but judges have ruled that there is enough evidence to warrant his standing trial. No date has been set for the case to start and Duterte has skipped several court hearings due to ill health.
The thousands of killings of mostly impoverished drug suspects took place when Duterte was mayor of the southern city of Davao and after he became president in 2016. The killings during police raids alarmed human rights groups and Western governments, led by the United States.