MANILA, Philippines — The killing of Kian Lloyd delos Santos, widely believed to be an execution and not a shootout as police claim, is a “turning point” that highlights the need for an independent investigation into the thousands of deaths in the government’s war on drugs, a United Nations expert said.
The death of Delos Santos on August 16 rekindled widespread outrage over President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown on drugs and criminality, estimated to have claimed more than 13,000 lives since he assumed office, after closed circuit television footage surfaced showing Caloocan City policemen dragging the 17-year old senior high school student just before he was found dead.
The police initially insisted he was a drug “runner” who was killed when he shot it out with officers conducting a neighborhood anti-narcotics sweep, even showing the slumped body of the youth with a pistol in his left hand, but subsequent investigations tended to debunk this.
Amid growing outrage, which was stoked further by the subsequent deaths of two other teens — buddies Carl Angelo Arnaiz, 19, and Reynaldo de Guzman, 14, who went missing together the day after Delos Santos’ killing, only to be found separate many days later, Arnaiz supposedly killed in another supposed shootout with, again, Caloocan police after allegedly robbing a cab, De Guzman floating in a creek in faraway Gapan, Nueva Ecija, his head wrapped in packing tape and around 30 stab wounds in the body — Duterte met with Kian’s parents in his official residence and promised justice for their son’s death.
Agnes Callamard, UN special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said in an interview that the evidence and manner of Delos Santos’ death was indisputable proof Duterte’s war on drugs if seriously flawed.
“All the evidence before the public tends to show that it was executed by the police; the position of the body, bullets in the back, in the neck, shot at pointblank, witnesses, cameras,” she said.
However, Callamard, who Duterte has publicly attacked for suggesting she should visit the country to investigate the drug war killings, stressed that it was not enough for the government to guarantee justice for Delos Santos.
“We must investigate not only Kian’s case but (also) all the murders. All this demonstrates the importance of this independent investigation,” she said.
“The President went to see the (Delos Santos) family. He should do it for all victims,” she added.
WATCH THE NEWS5 VIDEO REPORT:
