Police hiding drug suspects in secret jail

PHILIPPINES: Human rights officials have exposed a hidden jail holding accused suspects without charge at a Manila police station in the latest abuses linked to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called ‘‘war on drugs’’.

The officials from the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights surprised police when they led journalists to the hidden jail’s entrance behind a bookshelf in the station in the Tondo slum, where the first of almost 8000 killings began when Duterte took office in July last year.

Twelve women and men were found in a dark, cramped, unventilated area where they were forced to use plastic bags when they

"They [detainees] have been picked up and they have to pay to be freed. That's the allegation. I'm really mad. Did you see that? It's terrible...my God." Gilbert Boisner, Philippines' Commission on Human Rights

needed to go the toilet. The detainees said they had been abducted, accused of involvement in drugs and held for days without being allowed to contact family members or lawyers.

Police denied the claims and insisted they were still processing charges on the suspects.

They refused a demand from the commission, a government body, to release the detainees.

Grace de Guzman, 44, said she and her husband were detained without cause and taken to the police station a week ago.

Some detainees told journalists that police had demanded money from them in exchange for their release. One man showed bruises he said were caused by a police beating. Police also denied these claims. Gilbert Boisner, director of the commission’s national capital region, said the jail did not meet international standards and police had not recorded the arrests.

‘‘They [detainees] have been picked up and they have to pay to be freed. That’s the allegation,’’ Boisner told journalists.

‘‘I’m really mad. Did you see that? It’s terrible ... my God,’’ he said.

Police did not disclose the jail when the human rights officials arrived at the station.

When officials tapped on a wall behind the bookshelf a woman replied ‘‘someone’s here’’.

The drugs crackdown have seen thousands of people arrested since July, overcrowding the country’s jails.

In some, prisoners take it in turns to sleep because there is not enough room for them to lie down.

A Filipino lawyer this week asked the International Court at The Hague to charge Duterte and 11 other Philippine officials with mass murder and crimes against humanity. The government mocked the move, saying there was no justification.

Human rights groups claim that thousands of those killed in the campaign were targeted by police, or vigilante assassins backed by police, in death-squadstyle extrajudicial executions, or EJK’s as they have become known.

Rapper, an online Manila-based news service, quotes testimonies showing that one policemen has been responsible for at least four killings in Tondo, home to 630,000 of Manila’s poorest people.

During a three-month investigation Rapper said it obtained testimonies proving killings were summary executions and accused police of torture and harassment.

Phelim Kine from Human Rights Watch said the discovery of the hidden jail is just another sign of police exploiting Duterte’s antidrugs campaign for personal gain.

In a case that caused uproar last year and forced Duterte to briefly halt the campaign, police abducted a South Korean businessman, falsely accused him of involvement in drugs and strangled him to death inside the National Police headquarters. Police had demanded a US$100,000 ransom from his family.

Duterte, 72, has described as ‘‘collateral damage’’ the deaths of children as young as five who were hit by stray bullets, and insisted there will be no let up in his campaign. An estimated 8000 people have been killed so far, but police claims suspects, some 4000, were only killed ‘‘as a result of gun battles while resisting arrest’’ . Fairfax