“Police blame the killings on suspects who “resisted arrest and shot at police officers”, but refuse to launch an investigation into the deaths”.
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He said others were thrown into the sea, their stomach slashed to prevent bodies floating to the surface, he said.
Since winning the presidential elections on May 9, Duterte once again called upon the police and civilians to kill drug traffickers and consumers under his anti-drug campaign.
Duterte has so far ignored the latest allegations while his senior aides dismissed them, with Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre branding them “lies and fabrications”.
“The Commission on Human Rights already conducted an investigation years ago, when the President was still a Mayor, and charges were not filed, they did not see any direct evidence”, Andanar said.
He alleged that among others, Duterte had ordered his band of hired guns under the Davao Death Squad (DDS) group to murder several aides of his then rival, former House Speaker Prospero Nograles; bomb a mosque and kill Muslims; as well as ambush Senator Leila de Lima and murder her.
“Our job was to kill criminals like drug pushers, rapists, snatchers”, he said.
Speaking during a legislative investigation into Duterte’s ongoing anti-crime crackdown, militiaman Edgar Matobato testified that Rodrigo Duterte had personally given assassination orders while he was Mayor of Davao City.
“Mayor Duterte was the one who finished him off. Jamisola (the justice department official) was still alive when he (Duterte) arrived. He emptied two Uzi [sub machine gun] magazines on him”. “I didn’t kill anyone unless ordered by Charlie Mike”, he said, telling Senate it was the death squad’s coded reference to city mayor, referring to then-mayor Duterte.
Asked why he left the death squad, he answered, “I am bothered by my conscience”. That’s what we did.
She said based on the data presented by Philippine National Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa during the first Senate inquiry on August 22 there were 712 suspected drug-related individuals killed during police operations since July 1. “What is your definition of a human being?” he told soldiers on a recent visit to an army camp.
She said the total number of 1,779 killed translates to 35 people killed daily.
Hundreds of people have died amid President Duterte’s war on drugs and it is likely thousands more will be killed before the campaign ends. “I killed people. I want our countrymen to know what we did in Davao”, said Matubato, who also accused Duterte of ordering the bombing of a Davao City mosque in 1993, claiming the former mayor believed it was connected to an explosion at a Catholic cathedral of Davao City earlier that year.
In his testimony, Matobato said he was the triggerman of at least 50 of the murders in Davao.
Paolo Duterte, the president’s son, called the testimony a “mere hearsay of a madman”.
Duterte’s office denies all claims. She’s joined by several global organizations, including the United Nations and human rights watchdogs, in criticizing the wave of extrajudicial killings.
In 2013, Matobato said, he tried to leave the death squad.
De Lima eventually declared Cayetano “out of order” and ordered Senate security personnel to restrain him. He said he chose to tell what he knew about the Davao death squads after being made a “fall guy” in the killing of a businessman in the city.
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He was admitted to the justice department’s witness protection programme but left to go into hiding when Duterte won the presidency.
