I have personally killed drug suspects, criminals: Duterte

Philippines cancels visit by UN official on extrajudicial killings

manila — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he personally killed suspected criminals when he was mayor of a southern city to set an example for police.

Duterte made the comments in a speech late on Monday night to businessmen as he discussed his campaign to eradicate illegal drugs, which has seen police and unknown assailants kill thousands of people since he became president on June 30.

After speaking about police killing suspects during the current crime war, Duterte said he led similar efforts when he was mayor of Davao, the major southern city that he ruled for most of the previous 20 years.

“In Davao I used to do it personally. Just to show to the guys (police) that if I can do it why can’t you,” Duterte said in his speech at the presidential palace.

“And I’d go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also. I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”

Duterte, 71, also responded to criticism from human rights groups and US President Barack Obama about his anti-crime tactics, vowing he would not be intimidated by their criticism into stopping.

“Sorry, I am not about to do that,” he said. In a speech to expatriate Filipinos during a state visit to Cambodia on Tuesday, Duterte

In davao I used to do (kill) it personally. Just to show to the guys (police) that if I can do it why can’t you

Rodrigo Duterte

joked that as mayor of Davao he would go on missions with police and shoot blindly at criminal suspects.

“I (would) sometimes go along with them. If you say I shot someone, maybe I did. I was closing my eyes because I am scared of firing a gun,” said Duterte, a lawyer and former state prosecutor. Rights groups have previously accused Duterte of running vigilante death squads in Davao that killed more than 1,000 suspected criminals, manila — The Philippines has cancelled a trip next year by the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings to look into the rising death toll in its war on drugs, the country’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Perfecto Yasay said the United Nations could not pursue its investigation because special rapporteur Agnes Callamard had declined to accept the conditions set by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte.

“They cannot come,” Yasay told reporters in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. “If they will not comply with the conditions of our president regarding including children accused of petty crimes. Duterte has variously denied and acknowledged involvement in the death squads.

But he easily won presidential elections in May after promising to roll-out his Davao law-and-order policies across the nation.

He pledged that 100,000 people would die in the crackdown and that so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that fish there would grow fat from feeding on them. Since taking office in late their visit to the Philippines to validate their claims, then the trip will not push through. They cannot come here.”

Yasay said there were no indications Callamard would comply with Duterte’s guidelines. He did not say what the government’s guidelines were, although Duterte has said he wanted to challenge the U.N. rapporteur to a public debate.

Since Duterte took office, police say more than 2,000 people have died in anti-narcotics police operations, with another 3,000 deaths, caused by motorcycleriding masked men and by vigilante groups. — June, police have reported killing 2,086 people in anti-drug operations. More than 3,000 others have been killed in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.

Often masked assailants break into shanty homes and kill people who have been tagged as drug traffickers or drug users. Rights groups have warned of a breakdown in the rule of law with police and hired assassins operating with complete impunity. —