January 8, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Self-confessed Davao death squad (DDS) hitman Edgar Matobato is now under the protective custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC), former senator Leila de Lima said yesterday.
In an interview with “Storycon” on One News, De Lima said Matobato left the Philippines in the second quarter of 2024 because the ICC prosecutor was trying to access him for its ongoing investigation on the Duterte administration’s drug war and killings by the DDS.
“Initially, the ICC was not trying to access him. Eventually they did, that’s why he had to leave in order make it easier for the ICC to access him,” she said in Filipino.
Like another self-confessed DDS member, hitman Arturo Lascañas, De Lima said Matobato is “under the protective custody now of the ICC in an undisclosed location.”
The New York Times over the weekend published an article detailing how Matobato, his wife and two stepchildren were able to leave the Philippines using fake identities and travel documents. The report did not disclose or specify when they left the country.
“Mr. Matobato had managed to obtain a new identity with a new passport and a new job description: gardener,” wrote Bangkok-based Times reporter Hannah Beech.
De Lima said she is not aware if Matobato has received limited immunity from ICC prosecution like Lascañas.
But she stressed that both their claims have been scrutinized by the ICC prosecutor.
“ICC vetted both already. It accepted (their testimonies),” De Lima added.
De Lima, a former justice secretary and chair of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), was the first to present Matobato as a witness against Duterte during a Senate committee on justice and human rights investigation that she led in September 2016.
During that hearing, Matobato detailed alleged activities of the DDS in the Davao region and highlighted similarities in the killings related to Duterte’s drug war.
In 2017, Matobato’s lawyer, Jude Josue Sabio, filed a complaint before the ICC in The Hague against Duterte and 11 other officials for alleged crimes against humanity in the course of a nationwide crackdown on drugs.
De Lima, who led investigations into the DDS while she was CHR chair in 2009, said she vetted Matobato’s claims before he was presented to the Senate. She was later stripped of the Senate committee chairmanship and was arrested for drug charges, all of which were dismissed after seven years.
The former senator said she attached her dissenting report that included details of Matobato’s testimony in her earlier communication with the ICC.
“It’s a comprehensive presentation of what happened during the Senate committee hearings and the very testimony of Edgar Matobato,” De Lima said.
In addition to the testimonies of Matobato and Lascañas, De Lima said the recent testimonies given by former president Rodrigo Duterte during the separate investigations of the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee and the House quad committee “will only bolster the ICC case.”
“That’s admission against interest. They can really use that, that’s a very high form of evidence,” she said, referring to Duterte’s statements confirming the existence of the DDS, among others.
De Lima said even the inconsistencies may also be used against the former president, saying: “Why in the first place would you mention certain things and later take them back?”
“I’m sure the ICC is very interested in those testimonies of president Duterte himself, his admissions, especially when he said that the DDS really exists and then at times, he himself would commit the killings,” she added.
Palace: No knowledge of Matobato’s flight
Meanwhile, Malacañang said yesterday it had no knowledge about Matobato’s departure.
“We can’t say anything about that, because we have no connection with Mr. Matobato. Whatever his purpose in going out, we cannot control that,” Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin told reporters at Malacañang.
“But, if he intends to go to testify in another forum, that’s also beyond our control. We don’t encourage nor discourage him,” he said. — Helen Flores
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