NICHOLAS Kaufman, lead counsel for former President Rodrigo Duterte, has refuted reports alleging that the International Criminal Court (ICC) nixed a proposal from their legal team to limit victims’ participation.
Kaufman clarified that no such request was made, attributing the false allegations to activist representatives, including Atty. Kristina Conti.
In a Facebook post shared by the “Alvin & Tourism” page, Kaufman stated:
“What they do not tell you is that, at this present moment in time, they have not been accepted as representatives of the victims. Instead, it is the Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), the unit specifically designated to represent victims before the ICC.”
According to Kaufman, the statements made by Kristina Conti and Joel Butuyan, activist representatives of the victims, regarding the defense team’s alleged request to limit witnesses with valid IDs, are false.
He insists that they only submitted an observation to the VPRS (Victims Participation and Reparations Section) and that it was not a formal request that was rejected by the ICC.
“This whole thing about the judges rejecting my proposal, that never happened. All that happened was that there were two activist victims’ representatives by the names of Joel Butuyan and Kristina Conti, who made all sorts of assertions in the press that I had asked to restrict victims’ participation in the process by limiting the ID documents that could be used,” he said.
“That never happened. All I was doing was I was relying on what the Philippine Social Security System requires for ID to be verified in the Philippines,” he added.
“What they don’t tell you is that they were not accepted at this present moment in time to be representatives of the victims, rather the OPCV, which is the unit which is dedicated to representing victims of the ICC. So, this is not a question of the judges rejecting something that the defense asked for,” he added.
“This is a response that the defense made to the VPRS, which is the internal court unit which is responsible for assessing victims’ applications. That’s all we did. We made observations. We didn’t make a request which was rejected. That’s a big lie,” Atty. Kaufman further said.
In an interview with National reporters on Tuesday, Conti said that the ICC’s pre-trial chamber ruled against limiting identification documents to national IDs and passports which many victims’ families cannot produce. She said it was a significant victory for
justice and efficiency.
