Durtete denies issuing death-squad orders

A witness in a Senate hearing on the extrajudicial killings in The Philippines has testified that he was a member of a death squad in the home city of President Rodrigo Duterte.

He said that the then-mayor himself ordered the killings of crime and drug suspects, as well as the bombing of a mosque in Davao City.

Senator Leila de Lima, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, presented yesterday witness Edgar Matobato, who also claimed that Duterte’s son Paolo, now the vice mayor of Davao, had ordered the killing of a businessman in 2014.

“Our job was to kill criminals, drug pushers, petty robbers and rapists,” Matobato said, adding that his group killed more than 1,000 people between 1988 and 2013.

In a separate news report, Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte also denied the allegations, calling the witness a “madman”.