MANILA — Former President Rodrigo Duterte may face other charges before the International Criminal Court aside from crimes against humanity for his deadly war on drugs, an ICC-accredited lawyer said Wednesday.

ICC Judge Iulia Motoc set the confirmation of charges hearing for Duterte on September 23, 2025. He first appeared before ICC judges in a March 14 hearing in which he was informed of the crimes he allegedly committed as well as his rights as a defendant.

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Lawyer Gilbert Andres, executive director of the Center for International Law Philippines, said Duterte is accused of being an indirect co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity of murder, torture, and rape.

The ICC is investigating alleged extrajudicial killings during Duterte's crackdown on illegal drugs as president, as well as supposed summary killings in Davao City (the infamous Davao Death Squad) when he was mayor there.

Duterte's drug war based on official government records claimed more than 6,000 lives of mostly poor suspected drug users and dealers, but human rights groups say the toll could be as high as 30,000.

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In the confirmation of charges hearing, Andres noted that the prosecutor "will define the metes and bounds of the final charges against Mr. Duterte."

"In fact, it's potentially, it's theoretically possible that the charge can also include other charges such as for example torture, arbitrary detention, or even rape," he told ANC. 

"That can be separate charges."

Late last month, ICC prosecutors said in a 3-page document that they had sent 181 items of the first set of evidence in the crimes against humanity case of Duterte.

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Duterte's lead lawyer had said that there was a "compelling" argument to throw out the ICC case against the former president before it even comes to trial.

Nicholas Kaufman told Agence France-Presse in an interview in The Hague he hoped to stop the case before the ICC confirms the charges against Duterte by arguing the court cannot exercise its jurisdiction.

But Kaufman's argument was promptly rejected by critics of Duterte, saying his camp was rehashing the issue that had already been settled by the international tribunal, which had ruled that it retained jurisdiction over killings that happened in the Philippines when it was still state party of the Rome Statute that created the ICC. 

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Former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said in a statement Tuesday that Duterte's camp raising the jurisdiction issue was expected "because there is no other way to defend former Pres. Duterte except on jurisdiction."

"They will have to argue on jurisdiction because if the charges are confirmed and this goes to trial they will not be able to surmount the evidence that Pres. Duterte ordered the killings of many people in his war on drugs," Colmenares said.

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