MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced Thursday the military would take a leading role in his deadly drug war, while vowing to kill more traffickers and addicts.
“I’m taking in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and raising the issue of drugs as a national security threat so that I will call on all the armed forces to assist,” Duterte said as he promised to kill more drug addicts.
His comments were the first following a report from Amnesty International that the killings in the drug war, in which more than 6,500 people have died in seven months, may amount to crimes against humanity.
They were also the clearest signal of Duterte’s plans for the drug war, after he admitted this week the police force that had initially led the campaign was “corrupt to the core” and said they would no longer be allowed to take part.
The 71-year-old former state prosecutor won presidential elections last year after promising during the campaign to eradicate drugs in society within six months by killing tens of thousands of people.
However, Duterte has had to sideline the police after a series of scandals emerged over the past month in which police were caught committing murder, kidnapping, extortion and robbery using the drug war as cover.
In one of the highest-profile cases, anti-drug officers kidnapped a South Korean businessman then murdered him inside the national police headquarters as part of an extortion racket, according to an official investigation.
Govt paid ass
Amnesty on Wednesday accused police of systemic human rights abuses in the drug war, including shooting dead defenseless people, fabricating evidence, paying assassins to murder drug addicts and stealing from those they killed.
It also said police were being paid by their superiors to kill. Amnesty said it documented victims as young as eight years old.
“The police are behaving like the criminal underworld that they are supposed to be enforcing the law against,” Amnesty said as it warned that the International Criminal Court may need to investigate possible crimes against humanity.
However Duterte was unrepentant on Thursday as he launched a profanity-laced tirade against his critics and rejected charges of human rights abuses.
He gave a lengthy explanation of the problems for people who used the highly addictive methamphetamine known locally as shabu and may have gone “crackers.”
“And you bleed for those son(s) of a bitch,” he said, adding that roughly 3,000 had been killed so far.
“I will kill more. If only to get rid of drugs.”
Police have reported killing 2,555 people in the drug war, while nearly 4,000 others have died in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.
As he announced plans for using soldiers in the drug crackdown, Duterte remarked how he only had “limited warm bodies” and discussed the pros and cons of imposing “martial law” to fight drugs.
“If it’s really needed to preserve the country, maybe. But it’s not the right thing to do at this moment, as you can see,” Duterte said.
The defense department, which oversees the military, has asked Duterte’s executive secretary for a written official order to serve as legal basis for the military’s participation in the drug war, ministry spokesman Arsenio Andolong told AFP.
Phelim Kine, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch, warned that using the military for policing forces anywhere “heightens the risk of unnecessary or excesive force and inappropriate military tactics.”
“There is also a deeply rooted culture of impunity for military abuses in the Philippines,” with only one soldier convicted of an extrajudicial killing since 2001, Kine said.
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Philippines’ Duterte vows to kill more in drug war, use military
Philippines’ Duterte vows to kill more in drug war, use military
Russia jails 15 for life over IS-claimed 2024 concert hall attack
- Eleven other men were also jailed for life for acting as accomplices and of having terrorist links
- Four more men were handed sentences of between 19 and 22 years over their links with the attackers
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Thursday handed life sentences to four gunmen from Tajikistan, and 11 others it said were their accomplices, for the 2024 Crocus concert hall attack that left 150 people dead.
The March 2024 shooting spree was claimed by Daesh and was the deadliest militant attack in Russia in more than two decades.
Relatives of some of the victims stood in the grand Moscow military court as the verdict was read out.
Shamsidin Fariduni, Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Makhammadsobir Fayzov and Saidakrami Rachabolizoda — all Tajik citizens who went on a shooting spree in the building before setting it on fire — looked down as the judge sentenced them to life.
Eleven other men — some Russian citizens — were also jailed for life for acting as accomplices and of having terrorist links.
Four more men — including a father and his sons — were handed sentences of between 19 and 22 years over their links with the attackers.
The gunmen entered the concert hall shortly before a show by Soviet-era rock band Picnic. They went on a shooting spree before setting fire to the building, trapping many victims. The attack wounded more than 600 people. Six children were among those killed.
Uliana Filippochkina, whose twin brother Grigory was killed in the attack, flew from Siberia’s Novosibirsk for the verdict.
She said she was “satisfied” with the ruling and that she had looked the men who killed her twin in the eyes during their final statements in the trial.
“They didn’t explain anything, they tried to escape responsibility, appealing to the fact that they had wives and children... That they were under the influence of drugs,” she said.
- ‘No remorse’ -
“There was no sympathy or remorse whatsoever,” she added.
Her brother went to the concert shortly before his 35th birthday. The family were only able to identify what was left of his body weeks later, burying his remains in Novosibirsk.
The verdict came ahead of the second anniversary of the killings.
“For us all it’s like yesterday,” Ivan Pomorin, who was filming the Crocus Hall concert at the time, told AFP.
Lawyers said some of the victims are still being treated for their wounds, while others have severe PTSD, unable to sleep, use public transport or be in crowded places.
The four gunmen — aged 20 to 31 at the time — worked in various professions, among them was a taxi driver, factory employee and construction worker.
They stood in the glass defendant’s cage, surrounded by security guards.
According to media reports, Mirzoyev’s brother was killed fighting in Syria, possibly leading to his radicalization.
Hours after the attack, Russian police brought them to court with signs of torture — including one barely conscious in a wheelchair.
- ‘Redeem guilt with blood’ -
The attack came two years into Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Russia — bogged down by the offensive — dismissing prior US warnings of an imminent attack.
The Kremlin had suggested a Ukrainian connection at the time of the attack, but never provided evidence.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said after the verdict it was “reliably established” that the attack was “planned and committed in the interests of” Kyiv.
It accused the men of also plotting attacks in Dagestan.
TASS state news agency reported this month, citing a lawyer, that two of them — Dzhabrail Aushyev and Khusein Medov — had asked to be sent to fight in Ukraine instead of a life sentence.
Throughout its offensive, Russia has recruited prisoners for its military campaign, offering a buy-out from their sentences should they survive.
According to the lawyer quoted by TASS, Medov said he wanted to “redeem his guilt with blood.”
- Anti-migrant turn -
Russia — already undergoing a conservative social turn during the war — upped anti-migrant laws and rhetoric after the attack.
This has led to tensions with Moscow’s allies in Central Asia, some of whom have confronted Russia and called on it to respect the rights of their citizens.
Russia’s economy has for years been heavily reliant on millions of Central Asian migrants.
But their flow to Russia dipped after Moscow launched its Ukraine campaign and some Central Asians also held back from going to Russia after the post-Crocus migrant crackdowns.
