Duterte had alleged that de Lima’s former driver used to take money from detained drug lords.
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Edgar Matobato, 57, told the nationally televised Senate committee hearing that he heard Duterte order some of the killings, and acknowledged that he himself carried out about 50 deadly assaults as an assassin, including a suspected kidnapper fed to a crocodile in 2007 in southern Davao del Sur province.
Others were garroted, burned, quartered and then buried at a quarry owned by a police officer who was a member of the death squad. The death squad regularly dumped bodies into the sea with their stomachs eviscerated so they would sink, he said.
But Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre of the Department of Justice questioned the timing of De Lima’s decision to present Matobato as a witness in the committee hearing, hinting it was politically motivated.
He said it would be “rude” for President Obama to discuss human rights abuses at a planned meeting at the ASEAN Summit in Laos, before calling Obama “a son of a whore”.
Thursday’s hearing was led by Duterte’s long-time critic, Senator Leila de Lima, who is also chairwoman of the committee on justice and human rights.
“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 (submachine gun) magazines on him”.
But he also said they killed personal enemies of the Duterte family between 1988 and 2013.
“Our job was to kill criminals like drug pushers, rapists, snatchers”. That’s what we did.
Matobato said before the commission, which is investigating the president’s anti-drug campaign that began two months ago, Duterte and Nograles were rivals and Duterte got the squad to kidnap Nograles’ people.
Duterte photographed with soldiers during his visit to the Philippine Army headquarters.
He said that he was responsible in hurling a grenade at a mosque near a wet market in Davao.
Mr Duterte had on various occasions admitted or denied involvement in the death squads during the campaign for May elections, which he won by landslide on a pledge to kill tens of thousands of criminals. “So if there is evidence then it is not only DCPO who will take cognizance about it, it is matter elevated by the higher office because the gravity of the offense hurled against PNP personnel is beyond my authority”, he said.
In August, the United Nations human rights experts urged the President of the Philippines to stop the extra-judicial executions and killings.
Matobato also said that following the 1993 explosion that killed six people in Davao City’s main Catholic church, the St Peter Cathedral, Duterte ordered a hit on a mosque in the city.
His testimony was not related to the drug war killings being investigated, Mr Pimentel told AFP, adding that “there’s even no showing that his life or safety is threatened”. “They are sadists”, he said, describing how the victims were strangled.
“They were killed like chickens”, Matobato said of the people he and his group killed. Another was a radio commentator, Jun Pala, who was critical of Duterte and was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen while walking home in 2003.
Paolo Duterte issued a statement pouring water on Matobato’s testimony, which he said was “all based on hearsays”.
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Duterte came into office with huge public support after he vowed to clean up the country of drugs and corruption.
