‘They were killed like chickens’: assassin claims he hunted criminals in Davao on Duterte’s orders

The explosive testimony was made during a senate committee inquiry into the Philippine president’s anti-drug campaign that has left more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers dead

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Former militiaman Edgar Matobato testifies before the Philippine Senate in Pasay, south of Manila. Photo: AP

Published: 1:45pm, 15 Sep 2016Updated: 10:25pm, 15 Sep 2016

A former Filipino militiaman testified before the country’s Senate on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was still a city mayor, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead.

Edgar Matobato, 57, told the nationally televised Senate committee hearing that he heard Duterte order some of the killings and acknowledged he himself carried out about 50 of the abductions and deadly assaults, including a man who they fed to a crocodile in 2007 in southern Davao city.

The Senate committee inquiry was being led by Sen. Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign that has left more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers dead since he assumed the presidency in June. Duterte has accused de Lima of involvement in illegal drugs, alleging that she used to have a driver who took money from detained drug lords. She has denied the allegations.

Filipino women who come from the slums of the southern Philippine city of Davao, hold pictures of their dead or missing sons, involved in petty theft or the drug trade in 2004. The mothers blame Davao city mayor Rodrigo Duterte for what happened to their sons, who they believe were summarily executed. File photo: AFP

The hearing was briefly halted so senators could discuss how to provide security for Matobato because of the explosive nature of his allegations.

“Our job was to kill criminals like drug pushers, rapists, snatchers,” Matobato said under oath, adding some of the targets were not criminals but opponents of Duterte and one of his sons in Davao city.