(GMA News) The International Criminal Court on Wednesday authorized the start of its investigation into the killings in the Philippines’ war on drugs.

In a statement, the ICC said that its Pre-Trial Chamber 1 has granted then-Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s June 14 request to probe crimes “allegedly committed on the territory of the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019 in the context of the so-called ‘war on drugs’ campaign.”

The ICC said that a “specific legal element of crime against humanity of murder” has been met with respect to Duterte’s war on drugs in the period from July 1, 2016—the day after President Rodrigo Duterte was sworn into office as chief executive—until March 16, 2019, the day before the Philippines formally exited the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.

It has also been met “with respect to the killings in the Davao area between 1 November 2011 and 30 June 2016.”

“The Chamber emphasized that, based on the facts as they emerge at the present stage and subject to proper investigation and further analysis, the so-called ‘war on drugs’ campaign cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation, and the killings neither as legitimate nor as mere excesses in an otherwise legitimate operation. Rather, the available material indicates, to the required standard, that a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population took place pursuant to or in furtherance of a State policy, within the meaning of Article 7(1) and (2)(a) of the Statute,” the ICC added.