Duterte says he killed ‘criminals’

MANILA // Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte said he killed suspected criminals when he was mayor of a city to set an example for police.

His comments were part of a discussion on his campaign to wipe out drug use.

“In Davao, I used to do it personally just to show to the guys that if I can do it, why can’t you,” Mr Duterte said.

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

Mr 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.

During a state visit to Cambodia on Tuesday, Mr Duterte said that he would go on missions with police and shoot blindly at criminal suspects. Huaman rights groups accused Mr Duterte of running vigilante death squads in Davao that killed more than 1,000 suspects, including children accused of petty crimes. Mr Duterte has denied and acknowledged involvement in the death squads.

He easily won presidential elections in May after pledging that 100,000 people would die in the clampdown.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in anti-drug operations since June and more than 3,000 in unexplained circumstances.