Courts hampering RP death squad probe: HRW

MANILA – Philippine courts are not cooperating in the investigation of vigilante killings that have claimed nearly 1,000 lives in the country’s south, Human Rights Watch said.

The New York-based rights watchdog said in a statement that judges had delayed judicial proceedings and denied search warrants, while investigators into the killings had been harassed with criminal charges.

The government this year launched an investigation into allegations that active and former policemen and local officials had been murdering suspected criminals in the southern Philippine city of Davao for over a decade.

“(But) local authorities and powers are doing their best to stymie investigations into the Davao Death Squad,” Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Elaine Pearson said in a statement issued Tuesday.

“They’re using intimidation tactics and bureaucratic delays to frustrate justice.”

At least 926 people, including street children, petty criminals and alleged drug dealers, had been killed, Human Rights Watch said.

Twenty-two had been reported killed in August and September alone, it said.

The national police and the government’s human rights commission are involved in the probe into the killings, with rights groups accusing Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of giving tacit support to the murders.

Officials in Davao, including Duterte, have repeatedly denied any involvement with the so-called death squads. –Agence France-Presse