A self-confessed hitman who testified that President Rodrigo Duterte had personally issued assassination orders while he was mayor of Davao said on Friday that we was sorry for the number of people he killed and was ready to die for his sins.
During a Senate hearing on September 15, 57-year-old Edgar Matobato told the justice committee that he had killed more that 50 people as a member of a "death squad" in the southern city of Davao, when Duterte was city mayor.
Since giving his testimony, Matobato has been living under the protection of a senator and guarded by former soldiers.
"I'm tired of running," Matobato said in an interview at a safe house in Manila. "I apologize to all the people I have wronged, those I killed."
The president has denied Matobato's allegations and dismissed them as fabrications.
"My conscience is bothering me. I want to correct the mistakes and I want justice for those people," Matobato said, referring to his victims.
He said that another reason for him to speak up about the Davao Death Squad was that further colleagues had tried to frame his as a fall guy for the murder of a businessman.
"I don't care if I die now, I have accepted my fate... I just don't want to go to jail. They had better kill me, hang me for all my sins."
Duterte had vowed to wipe drugs and corruption in the country and since he took office on June 30, more than 3,100 people have been killed in police operations and vigilante killings.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre described Matobato's testimony as "lies, fabrications and a product of a fertile and coached imagination."
Matobato declared that he could not read nor write and had virtually no education. He said for years he felt like a hunter, preying on petty criminals and drug addicts.
"All my life, I was like a dog being sent here and there and made to do things. I obeyed them, no questions asked.
"My only appeal is spare my family," he said.
Matobato said he was being looked after but was frustrated with his life in hiding.
"It's very difficult," he said. "I can't go where I want to go. I only stay here all day.
"I'm tired of this life."
Source: Reuters
Image: GMA News
Share It To Your Friends!
