‘Smoking gun’ testimony implicates Philippines’ Duterte in drug war killings
A lawyer aiding the ICC probe into extrajudicial killings during the former president’s drug war says the new evidence could be critical
Kristina Conti, who was accredited last year to be an assistant to the ICC counsel, told This Week in Asia on Tuesday: “For us, [Royina Garma’s testimony] is a smoking gun.”
Retired police colonel Garma, who has been romantically linked to Duterte, testified before a House committee on Friday regarding the former president’s specific instructions for how the drug war should be implemented.
She recounted that, shortly after Duterte’s landslide victory in the presidential election in May 2016, he summoned her to his residence in Davao City.
“I received a call from then president Rodrigo Duterte at approximately 5am, instructing me to meet him at this residence in Dona Luisa, Davao,” Garma tearfully narrated.
During the meeting, Duterte asked her to locate a Philippine National Police (PNP) officer who was also a member of Iglesia Ni Cristo, a powerful religious sect, indicating he needed “someone capable of implementing the war on drugs on a national scale, replicating the Davao model”, she said.
The Davao model refers to a controversial anti-crime approach that Duterte developed during his long tenure as mayor of Davao City involving the extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals, particularly drug suspects, by a shadowy vigilante group known as the Davao Death Squad.
