\n A Philippine police officer has been found guilty of killing two teenagers during former president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, court documents obtained by AFP Tuesday showed, a rare conviction of one of the crackdown's enforcers.\n<\/p>\n
\n During his six-year term, which ended in June 2022, 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 the anti-narcotics campaign, according to official figures, but rights groups estimate the actual figure was in the tens of thousands.\n<\/p>\n
\n Only three police officers had previously been convicted for killing a suspect during the crackdown, which sparked an investigation at the International Criminal Court (ICC).\n<\/p>\n
\n On March 1, a Manila court ruled that Jefrey Perez was guilty of murdering Reynaldo De Guzman, 14, and Carl Arnaiz, 19, in 2017, according to a copy of the verdict shared by the public attorney's office.\n<\/p>\n
\n Perez was sentenced on the same day to a minimum of 20 years behind bars.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was already serving a lengthy jail sentence after being found guilty by a different court in November of torturing the two teenagers.\n<\/p>\n
\n His co-accused, police officer Ricky Arquilita, died during the first trial. Both denied the charges.\n<\/p>\n
\n De Guzman and Arnaiz were last seen together on August 17, 2017.\n<\/p>\n
\n A trial witness said he saw one of the teenagers, Arnaiz, exit a parked police vehicle with his handcuffed hands raised, shouting \"I will surrender\" before the officers 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 President Ferdinand Marcos, who succeeded Duterte, has vowed to keep pursuing the drug war but focus on prevention and rehabilitation.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, rights groups say the killings have continued under his watch.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ICC said in January it would resume its probe into the drug war because its pre-trial chamber was \"not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the court's investigations\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Manila has appealed the decision.\n<\/p>\n
\n Human Rights Watch senior researcher Carlos Conde said while he welcomed the Philippine court ruling, the rarity of the conviction showed the justice system was \"broken\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This is the second drug war (murder) conviction out of thousands of similar cases,\" Conde said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This is... proof that the ICC needs to come in.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2018, three police officers were convicted of killing 17-year-old student Kian delos Santos in a Manila alley.\n<\/p>\n
\n Police said he was a drug courier who fired at them while resisting arrest. However, CCTV footage showed two of officers dragging the unarmed boy moments before he was shot dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Philippine police officer has been found guilty of killing two teenagers during former president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, court documents obtained by AFP Tuesday showed, a rare conviction of one of the crackdown's enforcers. During his six-year term, which ended in June 2022, Duterte openly ordered police to shoot dead drug suspects if officers' […]<\/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-113689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n