Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte personally killed a justice official and ordered numerous other killings, confessed hitman Edgar Matobato in a nationally televised senate hearing Thursday.
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The Philippine Commission on Human Rights said that from 2005 to 2009, the Davao Death Squad had killed 206 people, including 107 who had criminal records or were suspected of crimes.
The allegations surfaced as the Senate investigated alleged extra-judicial killings in an ongoing anti-drug crackdown that has led to more than 3,000 deaths in Duterte’s first 72 days in office.
Of all the 50 killings that Matobato has carried out, he admitted that the most gruesome one was that of a man who was fed to a crocodile in 2007. The death squad regularly dumped bodies into the sea with their stomachs eviscerated so they would sink, he said. “These are the kind we killed every day”, Mr Matobato said.
Matobato said he went into hiding when Duterte became president because he feared for his life.
“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”, Duterte’s spokesman Martin Andanar said Thursday.
However, following his testimony, Philippines Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre called the allegations “lies and fabrications”, adding Matobato “is obviously not telling the truth”.
Duterte‚ the Davao mayor at the time‚ then arrived on the scene‚ Matobato said.
“Whatever testimonies, statements that the chairperson (of the Senate committee) are saying, we will have to have a proper investigation regarding that”.
The President has launched blistering verbal attacks on Sen De Lima, accusing her of being on the payroll of drug gangs, which she denies.
The most recent Philippine National Police data shows that from July 1 to September 4, police killed an estimated 1,011 suspected “drug pushers and users”, more than 14 times the 68 such police killings recorded between January 1 and June 15.
Ms De Lima eventually declared Mr Cayetano “out of order” and ordered senate security personnel to restrain him.
“Mayor Duterte was the one who finished him off”.
He seemingly is working to keep his campaign promise.
He added, “Aside from indications that this is a perjured witness, one wonders at the timing of the case, when de Lima is about to face the Senate inquiry on her alleged involvement in the illegal drug case”. “He emptied two Uzi magazines on him”, Matobato said. “I was tortured for a week”, Matobato said, offering this betrayal as the reason for coming forward now.
“Even setting aside whatever legal technicality he used, it was heartless and reeks of political maneuvering to cover for President Duterte”, he claimed. Another was a radio commentator, Jun Pala, who was critical of Mr Duterte and was killed by gunmen on motorcycles while walking home in 2003.
Acknowledging for the first time that he may not be able to keep his campaign promise to eradicate illegal drugs in no more than six months, President Rodrigo Duterte said in jest that with the huge number of people involved, “even if I wanted to, I can not kill them all”.
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Matobato said that in the 1990s he had overheard Rodrigo Duterte order the bombing of mosques in Davao as retaliation for an attack on a cathedral.
