Kerwin Espinosa on his father Rolando’s death: ‘It’s a rubout’

“Rubout.”

That was how alleged Eastern Visayas drug lord Kerwin Espinosa on Friday described the manner his father, former Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, was killed, a report on News To Go on Friday said.

"Rubout 'yun. Rubout, hindi 'yun shootout,” Espinosa told members of the media aboard the plane back to the Philippines. “Dahil sa nangyari, nakausap namin 'yung mga bilanggo doon."

Mayor Espinosa was killed in a supposed firefight inside the Baybay City Sub-Provincial Jail in Leyte on November 5.

His son, Kerwin, arrived back in the Philippines on Friday after he was arrested in Abu Dhabi last month.

Senator Panfilo Lacson on November 10 said the loopholes in police statements over the killing of Mayor Espinosa may have “reinforced” the theory that it is a case of extrajudicial killing.

“Lalo na-reinforce [‘yung extrajudicial killing] dahil sa mga testimonies,” Lacson said after an eight-hour Senate hearing on Espinosa’s killing.

Members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group claimed that Espinosa was killed in a shootout in his jail cell. The operatives were serving then a search warrant on the mayor for possession of drugs and a firearm.

President Rodrigo Duterte, meanwhile, said he said he believed the version of events presented by the police.

"Let me state my case as the chief executive of the executive branch: I believe in the version of the police," Duterte said on November 11 in a news conference in Davao City shortly after arriving from his two-day visit to Malaysia. —Erwin Colcol/KG, GMA News