But the following aides communicated the mayor’s orders to the hitmen: This covered Duterte’s second period as mayor and vice mayor after his stint as a congressman.įinal orders to kill emanated from Duterte himself, said Lascañas. From the Mayor’s Unit, the group would evolve into the Anti-Crime Task Force Office (1988-1998) when Duterte was mayor, then became known as the Heinous Crime Task Group or the Heinous Crimes Investigation Section from 2001-2016. He likewise detailed the origins of their group and who was responsible for issuing kill orders. He also said he was responsible for high-profile killings of political enemies, enemies of businessmen close to Duterte, even enemies of fellow hitsquad members. Lascañas said in his affidavit that he spoke directly with Duterte or Go about killing operations. The 2009 Human Rights Watch report on the DDS, for instance, matches many of Lascañas’ claims – such as those about the DDS’ origins, its members, the involvement of Duterte as mayor, the structure and evolution of the group, specific assassination incidents, the tools used for killings, and the involvement of barangay officials and police officers. Lascañas’ account is also consistent with numerous reports and testimonies about death squads in Davao City which had been based on accounts of anonymous insiders, family and friends of hitmen, and family and friends of victims, among others. We were able to independently verify Lascañas’s accounts about the group’s original composition, its members reporting to city hall, and financial reward given to them in exchange for their killing criminals and contributing to Davao City’s prosperity. While some information in the affidavit was previously mentioned by Lascañas in his first press conference as a whistleblower and in a 2017 Senate hearing, it’s the first time they have been offered to the ICC as evidence. It explains everything – from the secret language used internally by hitmen to its organizational hierarchy to specific instances of Duterte and his aide, now-senator and presidential aspirant Bong Go, allegedly ordering killings. Lascañas’ new account shows a never-before-seen level of detail on DDS operations. This shows how the Davao killings that began in the late 1980s are directly linked to drug-related vigilante-style killings during his presidency, which human rights groups want the ICC to hold Duterte accountable for.
It also details how Duterte supposedly wanted to replicate DDS operations on a national scale upon his assumption of the Philippine presidency in 2016.
The 186-page affidavit, obtained by Rappler and confirmed by Lascañas to be authentic, lists the original members of the DDS – its hierarchy and structure – and details how assassinations were allegedly carried out and covered up. The document was used by the ICC’s Office of the Chief Prosecutor as it readied a request from the court’s pre-trial chamber to begin a formal investigation into the drug war, which the chamber ultimately approved. Self-confessed Davao Death Squad (DDS) hitman and retired cop Arturo Lascañas provided the ICC with a rich and detailed account of how vigilante kill groups supposedly operated upon the orders of then-mayor Duterte in a new affidavit submitted in October 2020. When the pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) took note of the Philippine chief executive’s public statements in relation to his war on drugs carried out across the country, it was also aware that the said campaign was linked to “the killings in the Davao area” when Duterte was mayor. “President Rodrigo Duterte has publicly encouraged extrajudicial killings in a way that is incompatible with a genuine law enforcement operation.”