ICC requested blue notice for drug war suspects —Trillanes

Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Wednesday said the International Criminal Court (ICC) has requested the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to issue a blue notice against persons of interest in its investigation on the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

“Meron din silang request sa Interpol na isama itong limang ito sa blue notice na tinatawag,” Trillanes said in an interview at the Department of Justice.

(They have also requested the interpol to issue a blue notice to these five individuals.)

According to the Interpol website, a blue notice is to “collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.”

The former senator previously said that Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa and four other former ranking officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) have been tagged as suspects in the ICC investigation.

He posted a supposed redacted copy of an order by the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) on X (formerly Twitter).

Other officials named in the document were former PNP chief Oscar Albayalde, former Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief Romeo Caramat Jr., former National Police Commission commissioner Edilberto Leonardo, and former PNP Intelligence Officer Eleazar Mata.

In an earlier interview on Super Radyo dzBB, Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said he could neither confirm nor deny the order posted by Trillanes.

However, he has confirmed that the ICC prosecutor has sent a communication to the Philippine government, requesting assistance in interviewing “five individuals” named in the communication.

Guevarra also maintained that the Philippines has disengaged from the ICC and has no legal duty to lend the body any assistance but cannot stop the prosecutor from interviewing persons of interest.

The Philippines, under then President Rodrigo Duterte, withdrew from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, in 2019 after the tribunal began a probe into his drug war.

Based on government records, around 6,200 drug suspects were killed during the Duterte administration's anti-drug operations. Human rights organizations, however, say that the number may reach 30,000 due to the unreported related slays.—AOL, GMA Integrated News