MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has pardoned an American Marine convicted of killing a transgender woman, just days after his office blocked a court order to free the service member, the Philippine foreign secretary said on Monday.
The decision to release the Marine, Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton, angered both Philippine nationalist groups that oppose the country’s military agreements with the United States and advocates for gay and transgender rights who said Mr.
Duterte had shown leniency toward a hate crime. Lance Corporal Pemberton, then 20, was convicted of homicide in 2015 for the killing of Jennifer Laude, 26.