The 79-year-old, the first ex-Asian head of state to face charges at the ICC, followed by videolink during a short hearing to inform him of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, as well as his rights as a defendant.
His lawyer Salvador Medialdea told the court his client had been “abducted from his country.”
Medialdea also said Duterte was suffering “debilitating medical issues,“ adding: “Other than to identify himself, he is not able to contribute to this hearing.”
But Motoc told Duterte: “The court doctor was of the opinion that you were fully mentally aware and fit”. She set a date of September 23 for the next stage of the process, a hearing to confirm the charges.
In the prosecutor’s application for his arrest, he said Duterte’s alleged crimes were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in the Philippines.”
Victims’ families have welcomed the trial as a chance for justice, while Duterte supporters believe he was “kidnapped” and sent to The Hague amid a spectacular fall-out with the ruling Marcos family.
'Kill all of you'
“I see the arrest and handing over of Duterte as a gift at an important moment in time,“ Willem van Genugten, Professor of International Law at Tilburg University in The Netherlands, told AFP.
“We are praying and hoping that the court will grant our request to move the initial appearance just so that we can properly sit down with the former president and discuss the legal strategies since we haven’t talked to him yet,“ she told AFP outside the court.
But Ecel Sandalo, an anti-Duterte demonstrator, told AFP the fact the former president was on trial had given him “hope that despite all the injustices in the world, there are still small victories that we can celebrate.”
In his application for arrest, the prosecutor quotes from some of Duterte's pronouncements when he was running for president.
At the confirming of charges hearing, a suspect can challenge the prosecutor's evidence.
Only after that will the court decide whether to press ahead with a trial, a process that could take several months or even years.
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