Duterte accused of ordering killings, mosque bombing
Duterte accused of ordering killings, mosque bombing
September 16, 2016 | 12:02 AM
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers speech before members of the Scout Rangers regiment at a military training camp in San Miguel town, Bulacan province, north of Manila, on Wednesday. — AFP
September 16, 2016 | 12:02 AM
Last Updated: September 16, 2016 | 12:02 AM
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers speech before members of the Scout Rangers regiment at a military training camp in San Miguel town, Bulacan province, north of Manila, on Wednesday. — AFP[/caption]MANILA, Philippines — A former Filipino militiaman testified before the country’s Senate on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead.
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.
Rights groups have long accused Duterte of involvement in death squads, claims he has denied, even while engaging in tough talk in which he stated his approach to criminals was to “kill them all.” Matobato is the first person to admit any role in such killings, and to directly implicate Duterte under oath in a public hearing.
The Senate committee inquiry was led by Sen. Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign that has left more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers dead since he assumed the presidency in June. Duterte has accused de Lima of involvement in illegal drugs, alleging that she used to have a driver who took money from detained drug lords. She has denied the allegations.
Matobato said Duterte had once even issued an order to kill de Lima, when she chaired the Commission on Human Rights and was investigating the mayor’s possible role in extrajudicial killings in 2009 in Davao. He said he and others were waiting to ambush de Lima but she did not go to a part of a hilly area — a suspected mass grave — where they were waiting to open fire.
“If you went inside the upper portion, we were already in ambush position,” Matobato told de Lima. “It’s good that you left.”
After a 1993 bombing of a Roman Catholic cathedral in Davao city, Matobato said Duterte ordered him and his colleagues to launch attacks on mosques in an apparent retaliation. He testified he hurled a grenade at one mosque but there were no casualties because the attacks were carried out when no one was praying.
Matobato said some of the squad’s victims were shot and dumped on Davao streets or buried in three secret pits, while others were disposed of at sea with their stomachs cut open and their bodies tied to concrete blocks.
“They were killed like chickens,” said Matobato, who added he that backed away from the killings after feeling guilty and entered a government witness-protection program.
The recent killings of suspected drug dealers have sparked concerns in the Philippines and among UN and UN officials, including President Barack Obama, who have urged Duterte’s government to take steps to rapidly stop the killings and ensure his anti-drug war complies with human rights laws and the rule of law.
Duterte has rejected the criticisms, questioning the right of the UN, the US and Obama to raise human rights issues, when US forces, for example, had massacred Muslims in the country’s south in the early 1900s as part of a pacification campaign.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers speech before members of the Scout Rangers regiment at a military training camp in San Miguel town, Bulacan province, north of Manila, on Wednesday. — AFP[/caption]MANILA, Philippines — A former Filipino militiaman testified before the country’s Senate on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead.
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.
Rights groups have long accused Duterte of involvement in death squads, claims he has denied, even while engaging in tough talk in which he stated his approach to criminals was to “kill them all.” Matobato is the first person to admit any role in such killings, and to directly implicate Duterte under oath in a public hearing.
The Senate committee inquiry was led by Sen. Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign that has left more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers dead since he assumed the presidency in June. Duterte has accused de Lima of involvement in illegal drugs, alleging that she used to have a driver who took money from detained drug lords. She has denied the allegations.
Matobato said Duterte had once even issued an order to kill de Lima, when she chaired the Commission on Human Rights and was investigating the mayor’s possible role in extrajudicial killings in 2009 in Davao. He said he and others were waiting to ambush de Lima but she did not go to a part of a hilly area — a suspected mass grave — where they were waiting to open fire.
“If you went inside the upper portion, we were already in ambush position,” Matobato told de Lima. “It’s good that you left.”
After a 1993 bombing of a Roman Catholic cathedral in Davao city, Matobato said Duterte ordered him and his colleagues to launch attacks on mosques in an apparent retaliation. He testified he hurled a grenade at one mosque but there were no casualties because the attacks were carried out when no one was praying.
Matobato said some of the squad’s victims were shot and dumped on Davao streets or buried in three secret pits, while others were disposed of at sea with their stomachs cut open and their bodies tied to concrete blocks.
“They were killed like chickens,” said Matobato, who added he that backed away from the killings after feeling guilty and entered a government witness-protection program.
The recent killings of suspected drug dealers have sparked concerns in the Philippines and among UN and UN officials, including President Barack Obama, who have urged Duterte’s government to take steps to rapidly stop the killings and ensure his anti-drug war complies with human rights laws and the rule of law.
Duterte has rejected the criticisms, questioning the right of the UN, the US and Obama to raise human rights issues, when US forces, for example, had massacred Muslims in the country’s south in the early 1900s as part of a pacification campaign.
