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Rights group claims report on EJKs can hold Duterte liable in int’l court
An international human rights watchdog claimed that its report on the alleged extrajudicial killings in the Philippines could hold President Rodrigo Duterte liable in an international court.
Released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch’s report, “License to Kill,” details how Duterte, through his words, incited and instigated the police forces to commit extrajudicial killings.
“When we write this report, we write these things to be admissible to an international court of law. Everything in here has been reviewed by five lawyers,” Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch deputy director for Asia, told GMA News Online on Monday.
“So this type of document means that at some point President Duterte has to worry about if and when he is going to retire and he might actually retire to a prison cell someday unless there is some serious 180-degree change in policy,” he added.
HRW Emergencies Director Peter Bouckaert, in the interview, highlighted the glaring results of their investigation which highly implicate the police in alleged extrajudicial killings.
“In our report, we concluded that many of the so-called buy-bust killings by the police were actually executions, extrajudicial killings of suspects. And we found strong evidence that the police actually planted evidence including guns at the scene of these crimes to make these look like shootouts rather than killings,” Bouckaert said.
“We also concluded that the so-called vigilante killings by unidentified gunmen are actually carried out by the police as well or by [the] government who work closely in collaboration with the police,” he added.
Bouckaert said Duterte’s words can already implicate him in international court under the principle of “command responsibility.”
“When we put together President Duterte's quotes calling for these killings [and] inciting these killings as commander-in-chief and not taking action to stop them, when he's clearly aware of them, he is criminally-liable,” he said.
Palace: Duterte not behind killings
A Malacañang official on Thursday described as "baseless" the HRW report.
In a television interview, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Secretary Salvador Panelo insisted that Duterte is not behind the killings.
"What I am saying is there is no basis that the President is behind all these killings. He is saying that there are corrupt policemen; that doesn’t mean he is behind the corruption of these policemen," Panelo said.
"They’re saying that there are policemen who killed; that doesn’t say that he (Duterte) is the one behind these killings. That’s what I’m saying," he added.
Earlier AI report
Amnesty International, another group of human rights advocates, earlier released the results of their probe into the killings.
The group, in its report, said they have interviewed two paid killers who admitted that an active police officer was their boss.
A police officer who conducts anti-illegal drug operations also admitted to have received up to P15,000 "under the table" for every drug suspect he and the anti-illegal drug unit to which he belongs to kills, Amnesty International said.
Duterte, however, simply dismissed this report and branded the group “naive and stupid.”
"Ito ring Amnesty [International] so naive and so stupid, why would we kill people? Ano itong gobyerno na ito, tigapatay na parang aso?" Duterte said in a press conference in Davao City on February 6.
"I think there is one United Nations official, human rights. Sabi niya si Duterte daw is a murderer, should be charged for murder. Dapat daw ako kasuhan. This guy is ever the joker or medyo sira ang ulo," he said in a speech in Angeles City, Pampanga in December.
"Pakisabi nga kung sino ang ulol na iyon. Kindly tell him. He's another stupid there," he said.
‘Take a hard look’
But for Bouckaert, whether or not Duterte dismisses their report does not matter anymore.
“What President Duterte needs to understand is that he can be held criminally-liable for these crimes,” he said.
“President Duterte should take a hard look at what has happened to other leaders of countries who carried out these crimes while they were president. They have been prosecuted and they have at times been jailed for their role in these kinds of crimes,” he added. —KG/RSJ, GMA News
