THE National Bureau of Investigation has been tasked to hunt down and arrest retired policeman Arturo Lascañas, the self-confessed leader of the so-called Davao Death Squad who implicated President Rodrigo Duterte in the alleged summary killings in the city when he was its mayor.
In a memorandum, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II ordered NBI Director Dante Gierran to coordinate with Interpol “to gather information on the location and whereabouts of Arturo Lascañas and to coordinate with the proper authorities for the apprehension of the latter.”
Aguirre’s order came after the Davao City Regional Trial Court Branch 10 issued an arrest warrant against Lasca’s last week over the cases of murder and attempted murder, including the killing of broadcaster Juan “Jun” Pala in 2003.
In the Senate, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Tuesday bewailed what he called the harassment of the witnesses who had testified against President Rodrigo Duterte on his alleged involvement in the Davao Death Squad whose members executed suspected criminals in Davao City.
Retired SPO3 Lascañas and PO3 Edgard Matobato had confessed before a Senate panel that they were former hitmen of the DDS, which was allegedly created by Duterte when he was Davao City mayor.
They also told the Senate hearings that they were ordered by Duterte to kill suspected drug suspects and even political opponents.
The Davao City Prosecutor’s Office approved the indictment of Lascañas following the complaint filed by Pala’s wife Louise, citing his confession of the crime in his testimony during the Senate investigation in February where he admitted his involvement in the killing.
However, before the arrest warrant was issued by the court, Lascañas was able to leave the country in April. He flew to Singapore claiming there were threats against his life after his testimony against the President.
In his testimony before the Senate, Lascañas tagged Duterte as the mastermind behind the attacks on Pala when he was mayor of Davao City.
The confessed killer had also implicated fellow policeman Sonny Buenaventura and Duterte’s driver-bodyguard Jim Tan in the killing of Pala and the other summary executions in the city by the DDS during Duterte’s tenure as mayor.
But Buenaventura, Tan and the other people Lascañas had implicated have not been charged.