DHAKA: A witness in a Senate hearing on the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines has testified that he was a member of a death squad in the home city of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Moreover, 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 on Thursday (September 15) witness Edgar Matobato, reports the Al Jazeera.

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

Matobato also said that following the 1993 explosion that killed six people in Davao City’s main Catholic Church, the St Peter Cathedral, Duterte ordered a hit on a mosque in the city.

The mosque explosion happened about eight hours after the church bombing. No one was hurt in that incident.

A spokesman of the president denied the allegations.

Duterte served as mayor of Davao for more than 20 years. He last served as mayor in June 2016, when he took over as president of the Philippines.

In 2012, the Philippine Commission on Human Rights recommended to government prosecutors to file murder charges against Duterte.

But prosecutors refused to indict him and only police officers were charged and convicted of neglect of duty.

During the same hearing on Thursday, Philippine police chief Ronald Bato told senators that as of Thursday, at least 1,506 people had been killed in police operations against illegal drugs, while there were 2,035 murders by unknown assailants’ that are under investigation.

That brings the total to 3,541 people killed during Duterte’s 78 days as president.

BDST: 1900 HRS, SEP 15, 2016
NJ/BD