A fugitive ex-Philippine anti-narcotics officer was arrested on Tuesday over his conviction in the 2016 kidnapping and killing of a South Korean businessman who was strangled inside the national police headquarters in Manila, officials said.
The case of Jee Ick-joo, abducted by anti-narcotics police under the guise of a drug raid, was one of the most controversial cases of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte's deadly drug war.
"According to a witness, they kidnapped the Korean, attempted to extort money from him, strangled him, cremated his body and flushed the remains down the toilet," Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla said as he announced the arrest of Rafael Dumlao.
"The killing of Jee Ick-joo was the result of the abuses of 'tokhang'," Remulla told a news conference, using the local codename for anti-drug operations that killed thousands during Duterte's 2016-2022 presidency.
"The tokhangs gave too much license to the (police) operatives to do things at their whim without the process of law," he added.
A lower court in 2023 acquitted Dumlao, the alleged mastermind, of kidnapping and homicide while convicting two other defendants.
An appellate court annulled Dumlao's acquittal in 2024, saying the lower court had committed a "grave abuse of discretion".
Dumlao, a former top official of a now-defunct police anti-illegal drugs task force, was sentenced to a minimum 30 years in prison.
He went into hiding after the Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court's verdict last year, Remulla said.
Police found him asleep with a handgun near him at a northern Manila property early Tuesday, the national police chief General Jose Melencio Nartatez told the news conference.
The authorities are investigating who helped the fugitive evade the law, Remulla said.
Manila has relayed news of Dumlao's arrest to the South Korean ambassador and to Jee's widow, and the South Korean president "has sent his congratulations" to Manila, Remulla added.
Ex-president Duterte was arrested last year and handed over to the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court, where he is to stand trial from November 30 for the crime against humanity of murder.
