Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, was arrested on Tuesday in Manila, after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity in his war on drugs in which, human rights groups say, tens of thousands of Filipinos were summarily executed.
He was taken into custody at the airport in Manila after returning from a trip to Hong Kong, according to the Philippine government. Mr. Duterte’s lawyer, Salvador Panelo, said the arrest was unlawful, partly because the Philippines withdrew from the court while Mr. Duterte was in office.
Mr. Duterte, 79, who left office in 2022, is a populist firebrand who remains one of the Philippines’ most influential politicians, and he has enjoyed relative immunity despite several accusations against him in connection with his antidrug campaign.
But Mr. Duterte’s arrest could be a major step toward accountability for thousands of Filipinos who have long sought justice for their loved ones, many of whom were gunned down by police officers, hit men and vigilantes. Activists say the vast majority of victims were poor, urban Filipinos, some of whom were minors and people who had nothing to do with the drug trade.
Only a handful of people have been convicted in connection with the killings, which rights groups say totaled roughly 30,000.
“I am very happy that Duterte has been arrested so we can finally have justice,” said Cristina Jumola, whose three sons were killed during the drug war. “We waited so long for this.”
It was unclear whether Mr. Duterte would be forced to surrender to the I.C.C., which is based in The Hague. The case will be a high-profile test of the court, which in recent months has sought the arrest of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the head of the military junta in Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing, accusing both men of crimes against humanity.
Minutes before he was arrested, Mr. Duterte was characteristically defiant.
“You would have to kill me first, if you are going to ally with white foreigners,” Mr. Duterte said as he was getting off the plane from Hong Kong, according to a video posted by GMA News, a Philippine broadcaster.
For years, Mr. Duterte seemed untouchable. As mayor of Davao, the second-largest city in the Philippines, for more than two decades, he ran a deadly antidrug crackdown with impunity. In 2016, he parlayed his law-and-order credentials into a victory in the presidential election, even though experts said the country did not have an outsized problem with drugs.
At his final campaign rally that year, Mr. Duterte told the crowd to “forget the laws on human rights.”
“You drug pushers, holdup men and do-nothings, you better go out,” he said. “Because I’ll kill you.” He said he would give himself and his security forces immunity from prosecution and pardon himself “for the crime of multiple murder.”
While in office, Mr. Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the I.C.C., which had begun looking into the extrajudicial killings.
Mr. Panelo, Mr. Duterte’s lawyer, said the arrest was unlawful in part because the Philippine police had not allowed the former president’s attorneys to meet him at the airport. He said he planned to bring criminal complaints against the police and the officials who ordered the arrest.
He added that the arrest was illegal because the arrest warrant “comes from a spurious source, the I.C.C., which has no jurisdiction over the Philippines.”
But the Philippines is still a member of Interpol, which can seek the arrest of Mr. Duterte on behalf of the I.C.C. A representative of Interpol was present when Mr. Duterte was arrested.
When Mr. Duterte’s single, six-year term ended in 2022, his administration said that 6,252 people had been killed by security forces — all described by officials as “drug suspects.”
Mr. Duterte had seemed to enjoy impunity even under his successor, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. The son of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, he rose to the presidency after forming a political alliance with Mr. Duterte’s daughter Sara, who was elected as his vice president. Early in his administration, Mr. Marcos indicated that he would not cooperate with the I.C.C.
But ties between Mr. Marcos and Ms. Duterte unraveled quickly and in spectacular fashion. By late 2023, Mr. Marcos’s government had quietly allowed I.C.C. investigators to enter the Philippines.
Last year, the Philippines’ House of Representatives started an inquiry into Mr. Duterte’s drug war. The former president refused to testify in the House but appeared at a hearing in the Senate, where he has considerable support, in October.
“For all of its successes and shortcomings, I, and I alone, take full legal responsibility,” he said of the antidrug campaign. “For all the police did pursuant to my orders, I will take responsibility. I should be the one jailed, not the policemen who obeyed my orders. It’s pitiful, they are just doing their jobs.”
Marlise Simons contributed reporting from Paris.
