MANILA: Philippine lawyer Jude Sabio felt it was his duty to bring President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs to the attention of international war crimes prosecutors, but now that a probe into the killings is under way, he fears he too has become a target.
Sabio, who describes himself as penniless and on the run, said he had received death threats from Duterte supporters on social media after filing a petition with the Hague-based International Criminal Court in April last year.
“I’m in a state of constant paranoia because I fear for my life,” Sabio, 51, told AFP in an interview. “It could be very possible that a bullet will hit me.”
ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda launched a “preliminary examination” after receiving Sabio’s petition, which alleges around 8,000 extrajudicial killings, and this could lead to a full investigation by the court.
Sabio wants the president arrested.
Duterte won a landslide victory in 2016 elections largely on a pledge to eradicate drugs. He is accused of stoking the killings with inflammatory statements and repeated promises to pardon any police officer charged with murder.
Police say they have killed 4,021 drug suspects in self-defense, but rights groups claim police and shadowy vigilantes have actually killed more than 12,000 people.
Duterte maintains he is beyond the ICC’s jurisdiction and has threatened to withdraw his country from the treaty that created it if the tribunal pursues a formal investigation.
“The problem with me is when I see something wrong I fight,” said Sabio, who had a low-key legal practice for two decades and unsuccessfully ran for public office twice.
“Now to the question of how it feels to be standing against Goliath, to me the fact that he is president, I’m sorry to say this, doesn’t matter to me.”
The unassuming lawyer — the son of public school teachers of modest means — lost the 2010 election for mayor of a southern town and was disqualified for being a “nuisance” senatorial candidate in 2016, officially ruled as lacking funds to run his campaign.
But his life started to change course when in October 2016 he agreed to represent Edgar Matobato, a self-confessed assassin whose deposition forms part of the ICC case.
Matobato had spectacularly confessed at a Senate public hearing a month earlier that he was a member of the “Davao Death Squad” that killed at least a thousand people on Duterte’s orders when the president was mayor of Davao city.
The lawyer alleged in the suit that the drug war was the “Davao Death Squad” on a national scale, which Duterte rejects.
“It is targeting a vulnerable civilian population, composed mostly of the poor living in depressed communities,” Sabio said.
“The only way to stop the killings is to issue a warrant of arrest. Arrest president Duterte and bring him to The Hague.”
Sabio, a short, stocky man with an unruly moustache, has feared for his life ever since and he left his southern home city of Cagayan de Oro for his own safety a year ago — the last time he saw his 75-year-old mother.
His assassins could be “riding in tandem” he said, referring to gunmen on motorcycles, said by witnesses to be behind many of the unsolved street murders of known small-time drug dealers.
Responding to questions about the threat against Sabio, Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque said Tuesday the president bore no “ill will” against the lawyer.
“Let’s make sure that if there’s a threat, he should report it to the police,” Roque told reporters.
However, Sabio hit back Friday, saying “these people are treacherous.”
He said he does not know Duterte personally and denied working for the opposition, taking on the case purely on principle.
But Sabio does not look like a crusader and is battling myriad health problems including diabetes and heart disease — twice going under the knife, the last in mid-2016, to insert six stents for clogged blood vessels.
He still owes the hospital 900,000 pesos (more than $17,000), and when he flew to the Netherlands to file the case “I had no money so people contributed for my plane ticket, and also for my hotel.”
Since leaving Cagayan de Oro, he has missed doctors’ appointments as well as meetings with other clients.
“I could have died in that operation,” Sabio said. “But I don’t know, I was brought to life and maybe this is my mission in life.”
’I fear for my life’: Philippine lawyer behind Duterte probe
’I fear for my life’: Philippine lawyer behind Duterte probe
UK to supply £225m in military equipment to Kyiv
- The new package will include £92 million for equipment to bolster Ukraine’s navy, including small boats, reconnaissance drones and uncrewed surface vessels, the defense ministry said in a statement
LONDON: Britain on Thursday unveiled a package of £225 million ($286 million) in new military aid to Ukraine for next year, including drones, boats and air defense systems.
The move came after the UK’s Defense Secretary John Healey visited Kyiv on Wednesday, holding talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov and vowing to step up British support to Ukraine in 2025.
Three years since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine “the depths of his miscalculation are clearer than ever, as the brave people of Ukraine continue to defy all expectations with their unbreakable spirit,” Healey said.
“But they cannot go it alone,” Healey added, vowing the UK’s support for Kyiv was “ironclad” and Britain would always stand “shoulder to shoulder to ensure Putin cannot win.”
In July, the new Labour government vowed to commit £3 billion a year in military aid to Ukraine until 2030-2031.
The new package will include £92 million for equipment to bolster Ukraine’s navy, including small boats, reconnaissance drones and uncrewed surface vessels, the defense ministry said in a statement.
A further £68 million will be used for air defense equipment including radars, and 1,000 counter-drone electronic warfare systems at a cost of £39 million would be supplied to the Ukrainian army.
Healey said the UK would also boost a training program for Ukrainian soldiers run with key allies on British soil known as Operation Interflex, under which 51,000 recruits have been trained since mid-2022.
“With Putin resorting to sending as many as 2,000 Russian soldiers to their deaths on the battlefield each day, it is critical that Ukraine is supported with a supply of properly trained and equipped soldiers,” the ministry statement said.
Umerov thanked the UK for its support and said in a statement that the “stable delivery of ammunition, especially for artillery, is critically important for our defense efforts.”
He added the two men had reviewed the results of the use of Storm Shadow missiles, without providing details.
London gave Kyiv the green light to launch the UK-supplied, long-range missiles into Russia for the first time in November.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to meet NATO chief Mark Rutte and key European leaders in Brussels late Wednesday to strategise over Russia’s war ahead of Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States.
Western backers are seeking to shore up Ukraine’s forces as Kyiv’s fatigued troops are losing ground across the frontline and Moscow has deployed North Koreans to the battlefield.
Russia repels Ukrainian missile attack in Rostov, governor says
MOSCOW: Russian air defense systems repelled a Ukrainian attack in which 10 missiles were fired at the Rostov region of southern Russia, local governor Yuri Slyusar said on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian official said the attack targeted a chemical plant that supplied rocket fuel to Russia’s armed forces.
Slyusar, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said air defense units downed 10 missiles in the attack. Fragments from one missile triggered a fire in a house in the village of Malenkaya Kamenka and smashed windows in others.
He said there were no casualties and emergency services were at the scene. He made no mention of any industrial target.
Slyusar later said Russian air defenses had repelled an attack by seven Ukrainian drones at around midnight (2100 GMT). According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or damage, he added.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s official Center Against Disinformation, wrote on Telegram that the initial attack focused on the Kamensky chemical plant “which produces rocket fuel specializing in solid fuel components for rocket engines.”
The plant, he said, also produced explosive materials and components for ammunition.
Kovalenko posted a brief video showing a fire and smoke outside a fenced compound.
Reuters could not independently verify accounts of the incident from either side.
Unofficial Russian and Ukrainian blogs suggested the attack might have involved Western-supplied missiles, but there was no official confirmation from either side.
In Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, partly occupied by Russian forces, the Russia-installed governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, said air defense units had downed four Ukrainian missiles fired at occupied areas of the region.
Initial analysis, he said, showed British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles had been used.
Reuters could not independently verify his account.
Trump brings chaos back to Washington by attempting to kill bipartisan budget deal
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump delivered a probable death blow to bipartisan congressional budget negotiations on Wednesday, rejecting the measure as full of giveaways to Democrats and increasing the risk of a government shutdown right before Christmas.
“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF,” Trump said in a joint statement with JD Vance, the vice president-elect.
It was a display of dominance from a president-elect still a month away from inauguration who remains hundreds of miles away at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It reinjected a sense of chaos and political brinkmanship that was reminiscent of his first term in office.
The episode also showcased the influence of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who spent the day attacking the budget legislation as full of excessive spending. They kicked up a storm on social media — Musk even threatened to support primary challenges against anyone who voted for the measure — before Trump decided to weigh in himself.
“Kill the Bill!” Musk wrote on his social media platform X as he gleefully reposted messages from Republican House members who vowed not to back the bill.
Trump’s allies were overjoyed by his intervention, viewing it as the fulfillment of his promise to shake up Washington. But lawmakers were also left bewildered by how a crucial bipartisan deal could fall apart so quickly just days before the deadline. There are also questions about the future of Trump-backed House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was pushing the budget legislation and is up for reelection for his post in just a couple of weeks.
UK terror threat ‘smoldering’ amid potential fallout from Syria
- National counterterrorism coordinator says situation has never been more complex and ‘history tells us that, unfortunately, any instability creates space for extremism’
- Border officials on high alert for possibility that British Daesh members and supporters might attempt to return to the UK
LONDON: The threat of terrorism in the UK has been described as “smoldering” amid the potential fallout from the collapse this month of the Assad regime in Syria.
Counterterrorism police fear uncertainty about Syria’s future could fuel extremist attacks in the UK, and border officials are on high alert for the possibility that British Daesh members and supporters might attempt to return to the country.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, the UK’s national counterterrorism coordinator, said the current terror threat in the country is “smoldering” and has never been more complex, given the dangers posed by extremists, state-sponsored plots and planned attacks from individuals with no obvious ideology.
“Events in Syria are certainly something that are a focus and something that all of us need to think about,” she said.
“It’s that stark reminder that we need to focus on old enemies of peace and security as well as the new. History tells us that, unfortunately, any instability creates space for extremism, for violence and acts of terror.”
Although the British government has engaged diplomatically with Syria’s new de facto leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, Evans noted that his organization, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, remains a banned terrorist group under UK law and anyone who demonstrates support for it could face terror-related charges. She said no one has been arrested so far for such activity but would neither confirm nor deny whether anybody is under investigation.
Evans also revealed that counterterrorism police are increasingly finding images of extreme violence, pornography, misogyny and gore, which sometimes fuel terror plans, in the online viewing histories of suspects as young as 10 years old.
“It’s a pick-and-mix of horror. These sorts of grotesque fascinations with violence and harmful views that we’re seeing are increasingly common,” she said.
“We most definitely need to think differently about how we stop that conveyor belt of young people who are seeing and being exposed to this type of material and, unfortunately, sometimes then going on to commit horrific acts.”
North Korea slams ‘reckless’ US-led criticism of involvement in Ukraine
SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday lashed out at the United States and its allies for criticizing its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, including the deployment of troops, rejecting what it called a “reckless provocation.”
In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a foreign ministry spokesman said the declaration by 10 nations and the European Union was “distorting and slandering” Pyongyang’s “normal cooperative” ties with Moscow.
