De Lima cries politics as behind rejection to join proceedings on ICC withdrawal

Sen. Leila de Lima is flanked by police escorts as she arrives in court. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO / FILE

Senator Leila De Lima said it is obvious that the denial of her request to participate in the oral arguments on the validity of the government’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no legal basis.

“It is obvious that the denial of my request to argue on my own behalf, as petitioner before the Supreme Court, to question the validity of [President Rodrigo] Duterte’s unilateral withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, has no basis in fact or in law. The denial is purely political,” De Lima said in a statement on Wednesday.

The opposition senator questioned the furlough recently given to Zaldy Ampatuan, principal suspect in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre that killed 58 people, to attend to his daughter’s wedding.

“I simply cannot understand how attending a wedding can trump appearance in an important case with grave constitutional and political implications in the court’s hierarchy of considerations in granting furlough to detention prisoners,” she said.

READ: LOOK: Court order allowing Zaldy Ampatuan to attend daughter’s wedding

De Lima, one of Duterte’s staunchest critics, stressed that the government didn’t want her in the hearings because she would, “again, speak the truth about Duterte’s attempts to evade accountability for his blood-soaked regime.”

She claimed that Duterte “unilaterally withdrew not because it was in the national interest” but because “remaining under the ICC jurisdiction is not in his personal, selfish interest.”

“He fears that his time to pay for his crimes has come,” she noted.

De Lima, who has been detained at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center for drug-related charges, also reiterated her innocence, adding that Duterte and his allies fear the ICC.

“I have killed no one. I have smuggled and sold no drugs. I have not profited from the national coffers. That is why they want me silenced, away from the spotlight,” she said.

“Only evil fears the light. Only Duterte and his minions fear the ICC,” she added. /jpv

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