Tag Archives: Murder

More than a thousand turn Philippine funeral to protest against war on drugs

The flower-decked hearse of Kian delos Santos, a 17-year-old student who was shot during anti-drug operations, stops in front of a police station during the funeral march in Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Erik De Castro and Andrew R.C. Marshall

MANILA (Reuters) – More than a thousand people attended a funeral procession on Saturday for a Philippine teenager slain by police last week, turning the march into one of the biggest protests yet against President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

The death of Kian Loyd delos Santos has drawn widespread attention to allegations that police have been systematically executing suspected users and dealers – a charge the authorities deny.

Nuns, priests and hundreds of children, chanting “justice for Kian, justice for all” joined the funeral cortege as it made its way from a church to the cemetery where the 17-year-old was buried.

Delos Santos’ father, Saldy, spoke briefly during a mass to defend his son’s innocence and express anger over the police.

“Don’t they have a heart? I’m not sure they do. There’s a lot of churches, they should go there,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

Delos Santos was dragged by plain-clothes policemen to a dark, trash-filled alley in northern Manila, before he was shot in the head and left next to a pigsty, according to witnesses whose accounts appeared to be backed up by CCTV footage.

Police say they acted in self defense after delos Santos opened fire on them.

The parents and lawyers of delos Santos filed a murder complaint against the three anti-narcotics policemen on Friday.

If accepted, the complaint would follow at least two cases filed last year against police over Duterte’s war on drugs, which has killed thousands of Filipinos, outraged human rights groups and alarmed Western governments.

Delos Santos’ flower-draped coffin passed through a major highway on a small truck decorated with tarpaulins reading “Run, Kian, Run” and “Stop the killings” displayed on each side. Passing motorists honked in support.

“This is a sign that the people have had enough and are indignant over the impunity that prevails today,” Renato Reyes, secretary general of left-wing activist group Bayan (Nation), said in a statement. “The people protest the utter lack of accountability in the police force.”

Mourners, some of them wearing white shirts, held flowers and small flags, and placards denouncing the killing.

A member of Rise Up, a Manila-based coalition of church-related groups opposing the drug war, told Reuters that families of about 20 victims joined the procession.

“I came to support the family. I want justice for Kian and all victims – including my son,” said Katherine David, 35, whose 21-year-old son was shot dead by police with two other men in January.

Department of Justice personnel armed with assault rifles were on guard during the procession and outside the church.

Most people in the Philippines support the anti-drug campaign, and Duterte remains a popular leader but questions have begun to be asked since the death of delos Santos, which came during a spike in killings across the Philippines’ main island, Luzon, last week.

(Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2ixnYFu)

The president’s communication office reiterated on Saturday he will not tolerate wrongdoing by law enforcers and called on the public to “trust the justice system under the Duterte presidency.”

But bereaved mother David believes the response to Kian’s killing marks a turning point in opposition to the drug war.

“There’s been a big change. Before, police could kill and nobody paid attention. Now people are starting to show support and sympathy,” she said.

 

(Writing by Karen Lema; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

 

Suspected Boko Haram militants kill 15 in Cameroon

DOUALA, Cameroon (Reuters) – Suspected Boko Haram militants sprayed a village in remote Cameroon with automatic fire, killing 15 people and kidnapping eight others in an overnight raid near the Nigerian border, several officials said on Friday.

The attackers burned down around 30 houses in Gakara village, just outside the town of Kolofata, which has been a frequent target of suicide bombings by the Islamist group.

A government source on the ground said that 15 people had been killed, all shot dead except one who was burned alive, while another 30 had suffered bullet wounds. The mayor of Kolofata and a senior military source confirmed that an attack had taken place but did not know the death toll.

Boko Haram attacks have killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 2.7 million during the group’s eight-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic caliphate in the Lake Chad region.

“The attack happened around midnight. The Boko Haram assailants arrived. They set 32 houses on fire … killed, pillaged, and traumatized the population,” said a district official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak.

Many people fled the village for a camp near Kolofata that houses thousands displaced by Boko Haram violence, he said.

(Reporting by Josiane Kouagheu; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Shot and dumped by a pigsty: a schoolboy killed in Philippines drugs war

Neighbours play cards at the wake of Kian delos Santos, a 17-year-old student who was shot during anti-drug operations in Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine teenager Kian Loyd delos Santos told friends he dreamed of becoming a policeman after graduating from high school.

Last week, plain-clothes policemen dragged the 17-year-old to a dark, trash-filled alley in northern Manila, shot him in the head and left his body next to a pigsty, according to witnesses whose accounts appeared to be backed up by CCTV footage.

The killing has electrified the Philippines, sparked multiple investigations and galvanized what had previously been limited opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Thousands of people have been killed since he took office 14 months ago.

Police said they shot delos Santos in self-defense after he opened fire on officers during an anti-drugs operation. But there was outrage when the CCTV footage emerged showing two officers marching a figure, subdued and apparently unarmed, toward the spot where the youth’s body was later found.

Three officers, who police say have been confined to quarters in a Manila police camp, are now defending their actions in a Senate inquiry that began on Thursday. They maintain delos Santos fired at them.

The teenager’s parents and the Philippines Public Attorney’s Office, a government legal aid agency, have filed murder charges against the policemen at the justice department.

“Let us allow the formal criminal investigation to proceed and not rush into conclusion or judgment. Let us allow the personnel involved to have their day in court and defend themselves,” Philippines National Police spokesman Dionardo Carlos said when asked about the case.

Reuters journalists spoke to at least two dozen witnesses, friends and neighbors of delos Santos in Manila’s Caloocan area about his killing.

They said he was a kind, popular teenager who liked to joke around and didn’t drink or do drugs. He was too poor to own a gun, they said.

“We no longer have our joker,” said one of his friends, Sharmaine Joy Adante, 15.

She said delos Santos had wanted to join the police so that his mother, who works in Saudi Arabia, could afford to live in her own country.

Nearby, at the entrance to his family’s tiny home, delos Santos lay in an open coffin. Among the tributes placed on its lid was a crumpled playing card – a joker – and a live chick to symbolically peck away at the conscience of his killers.

Some locals said they feared reprisals from the police for speaking out and asked Reuters to withhold their second names.

SLAPPED, PUNCHED, PUT IN A HEADLOCK

It was after 8 p.m. on August 16 when Erwin Lachica, 37, a welder, said he saw three men in civilian clothes enter the area on two motorbikes. All three had handguns tucked into their waistbands, he said.

Lachica recognized them as officers from previous police operations in the neighborhood. They were later identified as Arnel Oares, Jeremias Pereda and Jerwin Cruz.

According to a police report issued a day after the killing, when the teenager saw officers approaching, he immediately drew a weapon and shot at them. Oares, who led the operation, returned fire and killed him, it said.

“It was dark, he fired at us,” Pereda told the Senate inquiry this week. “We knew it was a gun, there was a loud sound. We saw a gleam of light.”

Police have cited self-defense as the pretext for killing more than 3,500 people in drug-war operations since Duterte came to power.

Lachica had a different version of events. He said delos Santos was standing outside a shop when the men grabbed him, and then slapped and punched him until he started crying. No gunbattle took place, he said.

“He was saying he was innocent, he was not a drug addict,” added Lachica, who said the men put delos Santos in a headlock and dragged him away.

CCTV footage from a neighborhood security camera shows two men marching someone, his head bowed, through a nearby basketball court. A third man follows.

The officers told the Senate that they were indeed in the video but were bundling away an informant, not delos Santos. Multiple witnesses, however, told Reuters they recognized the youth.

One of those witnesses was Victor, a teenage student, who said he knew delos Santos because he lived in the neighborhood. He said the men hustled delos Santos across the basketball court and down a path to the filthy, flood-prone Tullahan River.

Victor dared not follow. “We were very scared,” he recalled, his eyes filling with tears.

Delos Santos’ life ended in a dark nook next to a disused pigsty by the river. A few paces away, a 39-year-old construction worker called Rene was eating dinner with his two daughters in his home.

First, said Rene, he heard shouting – a man ordering residents to stay inside their houses – then two bursts of gunfire, perhaps 10 shots in all.

“We hid under the table,” he said. “We didn’t even peek out the window.”

Three other residents told Reuters they heard between seven and nine shots. Others said they heard nothing at all: Manila slums are seething, raucous places, where even gunfire can be drowned out.

KILLING STRIKES A CHORD

Autopsies by the police and the Public Attorney’s Office disagreed on the number of gunshot wounds delos Santos sustained, but pathologists for both told the Senate that he was kneeling when shot.

“You are not allowed to kill a person that is kneeling down begging for his life. That is murder,” Duterte said in a speech on Wednesday.

Duterte’s supporters have taken to blogs and social media to express support for the police and raise doubts about delos Santos’ innocence.

But the killing appears to have kindled grave concerns among the public because of the age of the victim and because the video supported witness accounts of his killing.

It has also fueled longstanding public anxiety about the drug war’s brutal methods, and could generate wider opposition to a campaign whose critics have so far been largely limited to priests, activists, lawyers and a handful of prominent politicians.

Still, Duterte remains popular, said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Manila-based Institute for Political and Electoral Reform.

“It’s not really a tipping point,” he said. “But Duterte is vulnerable. His popularity will take a hit.”

Delos Santos’ death was the culmination of a spike in killings across the Philippines’ main island, Luzon.

That same night, police shot dead at least 28 people in Manila during multiple operations to crack down on drugs and crime. Two nights before that, in Bulacan province, just north of the capital, police killed 32 people.

Some rights activists saw the upsurge as a government bid to regain credibility lost after Duterte’s recent admission that no president could solve the drug problem in a single term. He had originally vowed to end it within six months of taking office.

Many critics question the drug war’s focus on killing petty users and dealers from poor communities, rather than nabbing the kingpins who supply them with crystal meth, a highly addictive stimulant known locally as ‘shabu’ that officials blame for high crime rates and other social ills.

In a speech this week, Duterte said he had told his police chief to jail the officers involved in the delos Santos killing until an inquiry was conducted. He also vowed to continue the drug war.

“If you want, shoot me. But I will not change my policy,” he said later.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella told Reuters that there were lessons to be learned from the events.

“Kian’s case is a wake-up call for the need to reform government institutions, even law enforcement agencies,” he said.

For a graphic on death of a schoolboy, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/PHILIPPINES-DRUGS/010050JX18M/index.html

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema, Manuel Mogato and Chin Samson; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Suicide attack at Kabul Shi’ite mosque kills ‘at least 14 civilians’

An Afghan policeman keeps guard the the site of attack in Kabul, Afghanistan August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate of a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in the Afghan capital as other attackers stormed the building, killing at least 14 people as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State militants have attacked minority Shi’ite targets in Afghanistan in the past.

An official at the Ministry of Interior said there were at least 14 civilian casualties, while at least two policemen had been killed and eight wounded.

At least two bodies and 15 wounded people had been brought to city hospitals, with ambulances retrieving more casualties at the scene, said Ismail Kawosi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.

Some witnesses at the scene said the attackers threw grenades, while police officials said a suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate.

One witness said an attacker wearing a vest packed with explosives shot and killed the guards at the gate.

“At first a suicide bomber opened fire and martyred two security guards at the entrance of the mosque and then they entered inside,” Sayed Pacha told Reuters. “Some people escaped out of the mosque including women, but there were four attackers who managed to enter the mosque.”

Later explosions rocked the area, but their source was unclear.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Gunman shot at Charleston, S.C., restaurant; hostage rescued

Gunman shot at Charleston, S.C., restaurant; hostage rescued

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A disgruntled employee who fatally shot one person and held another hostage on Thursday at a restaurant in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, was shot by police, the city’s mayor said.

Witnesses said the gunman brandished a pistol and said “There’s a new boss in town” as he entered Virginia’s On King in the heart of the city’s commercial district, while about 15 to 20 people were having lunch. Many of them fled.

The gunman was transported to a local hospital in critical condition and the hostage was rescued, said Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg.

“A disgruntled employee came back to his place of employment… with a gun and killed an individual in the restaurant, held another hostage for some time,” Tecklenburg told reporters at the scene.

“This was not a terrorist act. This was not a hate crime. This was a tragic case of a disgruntled individual, I think with a history of some mental health challenges, who took his anger into his own hands,” he said.

Executive Chef Anthony Shane Whiddon, 37, of Goose Creek, South Carolina, was shot and killed during the incident.

Local television station WCSC-TV quoted a representative of the group that owns the restaurant as saying that the gunman was a former dishwasher.

Police helicopters had buzzed overhead and police SWAT team members had closed several blocks of King Street, which is home to many restaurants, bars and boutiques and is popular with residents and tourists.

Virginia’s On King is an upscale restaurant serving traditional Southern comfort food.

The local Post and Courier newspaper quoted a couple, Tom and Patsy Plant, who said they were eating lunch with their daughter Laura when the gunman walked in from the kitchen, the newspaper reported.

The Plants, who said they fled with other customers through a back door, described him as a black man in his late 50s. Patsy Plant told the paper he looked like “an ordinary grandpa, but he had a crazy look.”

The restaurant is just a block and a half from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where on June 17, 2015, a white supremacist fatally shot nine members of a Bible study group in what officials called a racially motivated hate crime.

The church shooter, Dylann Roof, has been sentenced to death in federal court for the massacre. He pleaded guilty in April to separate state murder charges.

(Additional reporting and writing by Gina Cherelus in New York and Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Editing by Dan Grebler and Christian Schmollinger)

Finns want tougher immigration policy after knife attack, poll shows

FILE PHOTO: People attend a moment of silence to commemorate the victims of Friday's stabbings at the Turku Market Square in Turku, Finland August 20, 2017. Lehtikuva/Vesa Moilanen via REUTERS

HELSINKI (Reuters) – An increasing number of Finns want the government to get tougher on immigration after last week’s knife attack by a Moroccan asylum seeker that killed two women and wounded eight other people, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.

Friday’s stabbings in the city of Turku have been treated as the first suspected Islamist militant attack in Finland, which boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the world. However, the main suspected has denied terrorism was a motive.

Some 58 percent of Finns want the government to tighten immigration policy and give police and other officials extra powers to prevent future attacks, according to the poll, which was taken after the attack and published by the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti.

A similar poll in April showed only 40 percent supported stricter policies.

Finnish police have detained four men and arrested two in connection with the Turku killings. An international arrest warrant has been issued for a fifth.

The main suspect, who is in custody, has been named as Abderrahman Mechkah, an 18-year-old Moroccan. He told a court he was responsible for the attack but denied his motive was terrorism.

At the time of the attack, Mechkah was appealing against a decision on his application for asylum, which apparently was denied.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila has urged the parliament to fast-track a bill that would give authorities new powers to monitor citizens online.

Some officials have also promoted establishing better-controlled “return centers” to monitor more closely those who had been denied asylum.

The poll showed 80 percent of Finns supporting both proposals.

(Reporting by Tuomas Forsell, editing by Larry King)

Journalist killed by gunmen in Mexican state of Veracruz

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a reporter in the violent Mexican state of Veracruz on Tuesday, authorities said, bringing to at least nine the number of journalists killed in the country this year.

Reporter Candido Rios and two other men died after being shot by the unknown assailants in the municipality of Hueyapan in the south of Veracruz, local police said in a statement.

Murders have risen significantly in Mexico during the past couple of years, and 2017 is on course to be the bloodiest year on record, underlining the failure of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government to tame the violence.

Aggravating the problem for Pena Nieto have been attacks on journalists, which have prompted some world leaders to express concerns about the matter during visits to Mexico.

Rios, who worked at the newspaper Diario Acayucan, had reported threats against his life and was registered on a national program to protect journalists, said Jorge Morales, head of a local media protection group known as the CEAPP.

According to a tally kept by Article 19, a freedom of expression advocacy group, eight journalists had been killed in Mexico during 2017 before the death of Rios.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office in Veracruz said it was investigating the killing of Rios but declined to give details over what motivated the attack.

Veracruz, a state in the Gulf of Mexico with important trafficking routes fought over by drug gangs, has become notorious for the murder of journalists in the past few years.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Tamara Corro; Editing by Michael Perry)

Amid outrage, Philippine opposition presses Duterte to stop killings

FILE PHOTO: Philippine Senator Leila De Lima waves from a police van after appearing at a Muntinlupa court on drug charges in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, Philippines February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – Political opponents of Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday urged him to end a culture of impunity and quell a surge in drug-related killings, amid widespread anger at police over the death of a teenager.

Allegations of a cover-up in last week’s death of Kian Loyd delos Santos has caused rare outrage among a public largely supportive of Duterte’s campaign, which saw more than 90 people killed last week in three nights of intensified police operations.

The 17-year-old student was killed in a rundown area of Manila and according to a forensic expert who conducted an autopsy, Delos Santos was shot in the back of the head and ears while on the floor, suggesting there was no gunfight, contrary to an official police report. The victim’s family reject police allegations he was a drug courier.

Duterte has resolutely defended police on the front lines of his 14-month-old war on drugs, but late on Monday he said three officers involved in the teenager’s killing should be punished if found to have broken the law.

Duterte said he had seen the CCTV footage acquired by media which showed plain clothes police dragging a man matching the description of Delos Santos, to a location where he was later found dead.

Opposition Senator Leila de Lima, a detained critic of Duterte, challenged the president to order the police to stop killing.

“I dare you, Mr President, to issue a clear and categorical order to the entire police force to stop the killings now,” De Lima said in a handwritten note from a detention facility, where she is being held on charges of involvement in drugs trade inside jails, which she denies.

“Just say it. Do it now, please.”

‘STIRRED INTO ACTION’

Another senator, Risa Hontiveros, told the house Duterte had blood on his hands and “reveled in the deaths of drug addicts”, inspiring a culture of impunity and killing.

Filipinos tired of crime and drugs and supportive of the president had woken up to what was happening, she said.

“You had no choice but to confront his death because his narrative was compelling,” she said of Delos Santos.

“You felt stirred into action because you could no longer ignore the growing outrage … there were thousands of deaths before him and that you allowed it to happen.”

Social media users, politicians of all sides and Catholic bishops have called for an impartial investigation into the surge in killings by police, which stopped when news of the teenager’s death surfaced. The Senate will on Thursday hold an inquiry into last week’s bloodshed.

Since Duterte took office, more than 3,500 people have been killed in what the Philippine National Police (PNP) says were gunfights with drug suspects who had resisted arrests.

The PNP says some 2,000 more people were killed in other, drug-related violence that it denies involvement in. Human rights advocates, however, say the death toll could be far higher than police say.

Senator Paulo Benigno Aquino said Duterte should stop the killings and strengthen the judiciary, education, law enforcement and rehabilitation instead.

“There must be other ways, Mr President. There has to be other solutions to our drug menace,” he said.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana urged the public to reserve judgment until facts were clear about the death of Delos Santos, who “did not deserve to die in the manner that he did”, whether involved in drugs or not.

“If the allegations of foul play are proven then the perpetrators must be brought to justice,” Lorenzana said in a statement. “They must be made to account for what they have done.”

Separately, Duterte’s office and the military moved to quell speculation of discontent among the security forces about their involvement in the anti-drugs campaign.

A shadowy group that said it was comprised of soldiers and police on Monday issued a statement calling for Duterte’s removal for turning the security forces into his “private army” and ordering them to carry out extrajudicial killings. The group did not name any of its members.

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)

Moroccan teenager admits killing two in Finland knife rampage: lawyer

The initial remand hearing of Abderrahman Mechkah (lying in a hospital bed, attending the court session via video), 18 year-old Moroccan man suspected of killing two people and attempting to kill eight others with terrorist intent in Turku, on Friday, August 19, is held at Southwest Finland District Court in Turku, Finland, August 22, 2017. LEHTIKUVA /Martti Kainulainen via REUTERS

HELSINKI (Reuters) – A teenage Moroccan asylum seeker admitted on Tuesday killing two people and wounding eight in a knife attack in the Finnish city of Turku, his lawyer said.

In a closed-door court hearing, 18-year-old Abderrahman Mechkah confessed to carrying out Friday’s attack but did not admit to having terrorist motive, lawyer Kaarle Gummerus said.

“(My client) admits manslaughter and injuries… But what the investigator has brought up this far may not be enough to classify this as a terrorist crime,” Gummerus told Reuters.

Mechkah appeared in court via video link from hospital, where he is being treated after being shot in the leg by police following the stabbings.

The court ordered Mechkah, who has yet to be charged with any offense, to be detained in prison pending trial.

Three other Moroccan men detained over possible links to the attack are due in court later on Tuesday. A fifth Moroccan who had also been under arrest was released, the court said.

The investigation is the first into suspected terrorism-related crimes in Finland’s history.

Gummerus said it was “impossible to take a final stance at the moment” on the issue of whether the stabbings were terrorism-related.

Investigators have not made clear what role the three other Moroccans, who deny involvement in the attack, are suspected of playing.

Police said they had issued an international arrest warrant for a fifth Moroccan national.

(Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl; editing by John Stonestreet)

Furor erupts over killing of teenager as Philippines drugs war escalates

Activists take part in a rally after 91 people were shot dead this week in an escalation of President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war on drugs in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

By Erik De Castro and Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines police came under pressure on Friday to explain the killing of a high-school student after the 17-year-old became one of at least 80 people shot dead this week in an escalation of President Rodrigo Duterte’s ruthless war on drugs.

Television channels aired CCTV footage that showed Kian Loyd Delos Santos being carried by two men to the place where his body was later found, raising doubt about an official report that said he was shot because he fired at police officers first.

Witnesses told the ABS-CBN channel that the teenager did not have a firearm and police officers at the scene handed him a gun, asked him to fire the weapon and run.

National police chief Ronald dela Rosa said that if the Grade 11 student did not pose a threat, the officers who shot him on Thursday night would be held accountable.

“Just think about it, he is just a kid. If that happened to your sibling?” he said on GMA TV. “We will investigate it, I assure you.”

Metro Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said the three policemen involved had been relieved of their duties and an investigation would be launched into the incident, which took place in the Caloocan district in the northwest of the capital.

Police killed at least 13 people in Manila on the third night of a new push in Duterte’s war on drugs and crime, taking the toll for one of the bloodiest weeks so far to 80, Reuters witnesses and media reported.

Earlier this week, 67 people were gunned down and more than 200 arrested in Manila and provinces adjoining the Philippines capital, in what police described as a “One-Time, Big-Time” push to curb drugs and street crimes.

The term has been used by police to describe a coordinated drive in crime-prone districts, usually slums or low-income neighborhoods, often with additional officers.

The spike in killings drew condemnation from Vice President Leni Robredo, who belongs to a party opposed to Duterte.

Branding it “something to be outraged about”, she has been a constant critic of the crackdown that has killed thousands of Filipinos and caused international alarm since Duterte took office over a year ago.

“NOT THE SOLUTION”

Several senators raised concerns on Friday over the rise in the number of deaths, calling for an impartial investigation.

“Killing the poor and powerless is not the solution to the drug problem when tons of methamphetamine are smuggled in,” Senator Francis Pangilinan said in a statement.

An ally of the president, Senator Jose Victor Ejercito, said he was “worried that these intensified killings are being used by some rogue police officers, knowing that the president will protect them”.

Police say there has been no instruction from higher authorities to step up their anti-drug operations and they are only doing their job.

Duterte indicated this week that the escalation had his blessing, saying it was good that 32 criminals had been killed in a province north of Manila and adding: “Let’s kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country.”

On Thursday, he said he would not just pardon police officers who killed drug offenders during the anti-narcotics campaign, but also promote them.

“I don’t think they are simply acting based on the president’s endorsements,” Duterte’s spokesman, Ernesto Abella, told reporters. “It just so happens they are taking active steps in addressing the drug situation in Philippines.”

Critics maintain that members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) are executing suspects and say it is likely they have a hand in thousands of unsolved murders of drug users by mysterious vigilantes. The PNP and government reject that.

Although the violence has been criticized by much of the international community, Filipinos largely support the campaign and domestic opposition to it has been muted.

“Again and again we hear people say it is safer … they appreciate the fact that the Philippines is being made safe again,” Abella said.

(Additional reporting by Ronn Bautista and Karen Lema; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)