Former President Rodrigo Duterte described as “preposterous” recent reports that the case of the missing “sabungeros” may be connected to his bloody war on drugs, his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte said.
This as Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said investigators are eyeing possible links of the individuals allegedly behind the case of the disappeared “sabungeros” to the extrajudicial killings during the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
“I informed him about the missing ‘sabungeros’ case… I told him there is an attempt to link him to the missing ‘sabungeros’ case. He said that is preposterous,” the younger Duterte said in an interview posted on social media.
The Vice President is currently visiting her father at The Hague where he has been detained since March.
The Duterte patriarch is facing charges of murder as a crime against humanity linked to his war on drugs before the International Criminal Court.
“I think that the deaths might intersect…more on the death squads. The people who undertake the contractual killings may intersect somehow with the drug war and with the e-sabong,” Remulla said. “That’s as far as we can trace right now, but we will have to establish clearer links to each other.”
He cited an incident in Meycauayan, Bulacan, where police arrested drug suspects who were also tagged in e-sabong operations.
Meanwhile, a lawyer representing the families of the victims of Duterte’s war on drugs urged the government to pursue the possible connection to the case of the missing “sabungeros.”
According to Kristina Conti, Assistant to Counsel at the International Criminal Court, this could bolster the crimes against humanity case against Duterte.
“The police have been implicated or, in particular, these death squads have been implicated in also killing of activists and other such targeted killings. It would add to the concept of some policemen being involved in a death squad or alternative criminal syndicate,” Conti said in a television interview.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “‘Preposterous,’ Rody says of drug war, ‘missing sabungeros’ link”
