MANILA, Philippines, March 12, (AP): Philippine police arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila on Tuesday and sent him by plane to the Netherlands to face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, President Ferdinand Marcos said. The global court in The Hague had ordered Duterte's arrest through Interpol after accusing him of crimes against humanity over deadly anti-drug crackdowns he oversaw while in office, Marcos said in a late-night news conference.

Duterte had been arrested at the Manila international airport Tuesday morning when he arrived with his family from Hong Kong. Walking slowly with a cane, the 79-year-old former president turned briefly to a small group of aides and supporters, who wept and bid him goodbye, before an escort helped him into the plane.

His daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, said she sought entry to the airbase where her father was held but was refused. She criticized the Marcos administration for surrendering her father to a foreign court which currently has no jurisdiction to the Philippines. Marcos said Duterte's arrest was "proper and correct” and not an act of political persecution, since the Philippines is a member of Interpol.

Among the most feared leaders in Asia while in power, Duterte became the first ex-leader from the region to be arrested by the global court. Clad in a dark jacket, an irate Duterte protested his arrest after arrival in Manila and asked authorities the legal basis of his detention. His lawyers immediately asked the Supreme Court to block any attempt to transport him out of the Philippines.

"Show to me now the legal basis for my being here,” Duterte asked authorities in remarks captured on video by his daughter, Veronica Duterte, who posted the footage on social media. "You have to answer now for the deprivation of liberty." The surprise arrest sparked a commotion at the airport, where Duterte's lawyers and aides protested that they, along with a doctor, were prevented from coming close to him after he was taken into police custody. "This is a violation of his constitutional right,” Sen. Bong Go, a close Duterte ally, told reporters.