\n A Philippine police officer has been jailed for torturing two teenagers killed at the height of former president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, court documents show, in a rare conviction of an enforcer of the crackdown.\n<\/p>\n
\n During his six-year term, which ended in June, Duterte openly ordered police to shoot dead drug suspects if officers' lives were in danger.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 6,200 people died in his anti-drug campaign, according to official figures. But rights groups estimate the true figure was in the tens of thousands.\n<\/p>\n
\n The crackdown was widely condemned and sparked an international investigation but only three policemen have been convicted for killing a drug suspect.\n<\/p>\n
\n A Manila court found earlier this month that police officers Jefrey Perez and Ricky Arquilita tortured two teenagers in 2017. The officers also planted a weapon and drugs on one of the victims.\n<\/p>\n
\n The teens -- Reynaldo De Guzman, 14, and Carl Arnaiz, 19 -- were later killed by the same officers, the court said.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, murder charges filed against the officers were withdrawn because they were submitted in the wrong jurisdiction.\n<\/p>\n
\n Perez was jailed for life for planting evidence and given a minimum sentence of 20 years for torture, according to the court ruling, which was released Wednesday and seen by AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n Arquilita died during the trial.\n<\/p>\n
\n The police officers denied the charges.\n<\/p>\n
\n The officers claimed in the case involving Arnaiz they had tried to arrest him on suspicion of robbery but shot him dead when he resisted.\n<\/p>\n
\n The teenagers were last seen together on the evening of August 17, 2017.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hours later, a witness saw a police car parked on the side of a road. He watched as a handcuffed Arnaiz got out of the vehicle, knelt down, raised his hands and shouted \"I will surrender\" before Perez shot him.\n<\/p>\n
\n The body of De Guzman was found weeks later north of Manila. It had dozens of stab wounds.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Without a doubt, the contusions and abrasions found in the various parts of the victims' body caused severe pain and exhaustion upon them, before they were eventually killed,\" the court said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Drop in the bucket' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Rights groups welcomed Perez's conviction but Amnesty International said it was a \"drop in the bucket considering the about 30,000 cases of killings in the War on Drugs\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Human Rights Watch researcher Carlos Conde said the conviction was \"rare good news in the Philippines drug war\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We can only hope the courts deal expeditiously on other cases,\" Conde told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n President Ferdinand Marcos, who succeeded Duterte, has vowed to continue the drug war but with a focus on prevention and rehabilitation.\n<\/p>\n
\n Police have killed 46 drug suspects since Marcos took power, national police chief General Rodolfo Azurin told reporters recently. Activists said the real number was more than a hundred.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Azurin insisted that \"as much as possible\" police tried to avoid killing suspects.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under pressure from the UN Human Rights Council and the ICC, the Duterte government began examining hundreds of cases of drug operations that led to deaths.\n<\/p>\n
\n The effort is still underway and 25 officers have been charged, Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla said this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Philippine police officer has been jailed for torturing two teenagers killed at the height of former president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, court documents show, in a rare conviction of an enforcer of the crackdown. During his six-year term, which ended in June, Duterte openly ordered police to shoot dead drug suspects if officers' lives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-109226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n