Philippines demands proof for rights group’s assertion of police ‘executions’

MANILA: The Philippines yesterday dismissed as ‘ thoughtless and irresponsible’ a report by Human Rights Watch that President Rodrigo Duterte had turned a blind eye to murders by police in what the group called a ‘campaign of extrajudicial execution’.

Duterte’s signature war on drugs was in the best interests of Filipinos and the New York-based group’s allegations of systematic police abuse were ‘ hearsay’ and not supported by evidence, said presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella.

“All these accusations of circumventing police procedures should be proven in a competent court and if found meritorious should result in appropriate sanctions against the perpetrators,” Abella said in a statement.

“Failing these, such claims are mere hearsay.”

The report, ‘ License to Kill’, documented 24 cases in which 32 people had been killed, where police accounts were starkly different from those of witnesses, who detailed ‘cold blooded murders’ of unarmed drugs suspects.

Official records said the killings were in self- defence.

Reuters last year looked at the citing of self- defence as the reason behind numerous killings in police operations, with a 97 per cent kill rate the strongest proof yet that police were summarily shooting drug suspects.

Human Rights Watch found no distinction between killings in police operations and those the authorities attributed to unknown gunmen or vigilantes.

In some of those cases, the victims had hours earlier been in police custody, it added. — Reuters