Duterte admits death squad but denies ordering drug killings

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told a senate inquiry yesterday he had maintained a "death squad" of gangsters to kill other criminals as mayor of southern Davao city.

However, he denied authorizing police to gun down thousands of suspects in a bloody crackdown on illegal drugs he had ordered as president and which is the subject of an investigation by the International Criminal Court.

Duterte, 79, attended the televised inquiry in his first public appearance since his term ended in 2022. The senate is looking into the drug killings under Duterte, which were unprecedented in their scale in recent history.

Duterte acknowledged maintaining the death squad before he became president.

"I can make the confession now if you want," he said. "I had a death squad of seven, but they were not policemen, they were also gangsters."

"I'll ask a gangster to kill somebody," he said. "If you will not kill [that person], I will kill you now."

Often cursing, Duterte said he would take full responsibility for the killings that happened while he was president from 2016 to 2022 but insisted he never ordered his national police chiefs, who also attended the inquiry, to undertake extrajudicial killings.

"Did I ever tell you to kill any criminal?" Duterte asked his former police chiefs. They included Ronald Dela Rosa, the current senator who first enforced Duterte's campaign against illegal drugs as his national police chief.

"No, Mr president," dela Rosa responded.

Aside from the ICC, there have been no known criminal complaints filed against Duterte in Philippine courts over the killings.

"I'm puzzled why the Justice Department hasn't filed any case," Duterte said. "I've been killing people for a long time and they haven't filed any case up to now?"

Ex-senator Leila de Lima, one of his most vocal critics who once looked into the Davao killings, said there was adequate evidence and witnesses of extrajudicial killings but they were scared of testifying when he was in power.

"This man for so long has evaded justice and accountability," said de Lima, sitting near the former president. "We have not brought him to account after all these years," she said, and added that witnesses could now help prosecute him and his associates.

ASSOCIATED PRESS