Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s legal counsel Peter Haynes raised concerns over the volume and organization of prosecution evidence in the International Criminal Court (ICC) case, saying the material would make preparations for the trial extremely time-consuming.
During the third status conference on Wednesday, September 16, Haynes told the ICC Trial Chamber III that the prosecution’s evidence list had grown to nearly 20,000 items, consisting of 15,529 non-witness items and 3,712 witness items.
“Your Honor quoted the figure of items in the prosecution's list as 15,529. That is in fact only the non-witness items. There are a further 3,712 witness items in the prosecution's evidence list,” Haynes said.
He said the figure was significantly higher than the approximately 5,000 items presented at the confirmation stage, noting that the list had since “quadrupled.”
Haynes also said around 80% of the incriminating items on the list were disclosed within the three weeks before the deadline for disclosure.
“I hate to make this confession, but we haven't got a prayer of reading 20,000 items of evidence by a trial date that starts at the end of November,” he said.
He added that the defense would also have to review the evidence for its brief, which is scheduled to be filed on October 30.
Haynes further raised concerns over a separate disclosure package that he said contained about 62,500 exhibits, equivalent to approximately 324,000 pages of evidence and more than 1,000 video and audio files.
“That’s going to be time-consuming, very difficult,” Haynes said while explaining the practical difficulties faced by the defense in reviewing the materials.
He also criticized the organization of some of the evidence, citing what he called “floating pages,” where individual pages belonging to the same document were disclosed separately under different evidence reference numbers.
As an example, Haynes said the defense had encountered a 400-page document that had been disclosed page by page, with only 347 pages located so far.
He explained that although a metadata update could establish a connection between pages belonging to the same document, the pages would remain separate exhibits.
Haynes also disputed the prosecution’s position regarding the defense’s ability to search the larger disclosure package. He said the defense had previously informed the prosecution that it would not assume responsibility for inspecting and assessing the relevance of documents in the prosecution’s possession.
ICC Senior Trial Lawyer and Prosecution lead Julian Nicholls earlier defended the prosecution’s handling of the evidence, saying the massive data set had required extensive work to organize and review.
The defense has raised the disclosure concerns as the ICC prepares for the trial, currently scheduled to begin on November 30.
Duterte is facing crimes against humanity charges before the ICC over alleged killings linked to his anti-drug campaign during his presidency and his earlier tenure as Davao City mayor. He remains detained at the ICC Detention Centre in Scheveningen, The Hague.
