Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was “forcibly taken” onto a plane headed for The Hague, his daughter said on Tuesday, March 11, hours after his dramatic arrest on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant over a brutal, years-long anti-drugs crackdown that left thousands of his citizens dead.
Duterte's daughter, Sara, who is also the country’s vice president, wrote on Instagram;
“They are taking him out on a plane by force without considering his health conditions.”
Reuters also reported that Duterte had boarded a plane. In a separate statement to the Philippine Star, Sara said her father was being taken to The Hague.
“As I write this, he is being forcibly taken to The Hague tonight. This is not justice — this is oppression and persecution,” the vice president said, according to the outlet.
Duterte, 79, was taken into custody at the main airport in the capital Manila after returning to the Philippines from Hong Kong on Tuesday, charged with crimes against humanity.
The former leader oversaw a ferocious crackdown on drug pushers in the Southeast Asian country, targeting with relentlessness, a criminal trade that had sparked widespread anger among his supporters.
The crackdown killed more than 6,000 people based on police data, though independent monitors believe the number of extrajudicial killings could be much higher.