Ex-cop: Duterte paid me, others to kill crime suspects

MANILA / AP

A retired Philippine police officer said on Monday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was a mayor, ordered and paid him and other members of a so-called liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents, including a kidnapping suspect, his family and a critical radio commentator.
Human rights lawyers who presented Arthur Lascanas at a news conference said the allegations could be grounds for impeaching Duterte, adding that his alleged role in the killings may not be covered by his presidential immunity.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who helped the lawyers from the private Free Legal Assistance Group present Lascanas in a news conference at the Senate, said he would ask his colleagues to immediately investigate the explosive allegations.
Duterte’s communications secretary, Martin Andanar, dismissed the claims as a “demolition job” by unspecified people affected by Duterte’s reforms and aimed at forcing Duterte from power. He did not respond to Lascanas’s detailed claims.
“The press conference of self-confessed hitman SPO3 Arthur Lascanas is part of a protracted political drama aimed to destroy the president and to topple his administration,” Andanar said, without elaborating or offering any evidence.
Duterte has denied his administration backs unlawful killings of suspects in his crackdown on illegal drugs that is feared to have killed more than 7,000 mostly poor drug users and petty drug pushers since he took office last June.
The killings under the crackdown, an expansion of his anti-drug campaign when he was the longtime mayor of southern Davao city, have alarmed the United States, other Western governments and UN human rights officials.
In many public speeches, Duterte has ordered policemen to defend themselves if drug suspects fight back and has openly threatened drug lords and dealers with death.