Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
How sure is Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II that retired police officer Arturo Lascañas “is not yet on refugee status in another country?”
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV raised this question on Thursday after Aguirre ordered the International Police (Interpol) to track down Lascañas, who left for Singapore last April 8 or even before he was charged and ordered arrested for the 2003 killing of broadcaster Jun Pala.
Aguirre also ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct an investigation and a case build-up against those who “harbored, financed, and facilitated” Lascañas’ flight out of the country.
READ: Aguirre wants Interpol to hunt down Lascañas
But Trillanes, staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, slammed the two directives.
“If there is someone harboring a criminal, then it is Aguirre himself because the mastermind and mass murderer here is his boss, Duterte,” Trillanes said in a statement.
“And if there are people obstructing justice in this case, then they would be the Duterte allies in Congress for railroading the impeachment and terminating the Senate investigations.”
“Moreover, Sec. Aguirre conveniently forgets that Lascañas exited legally through the immigration counter of the Bureau of Immigration, which is under Aguirre’s DOJ. As to the Interpol, how sure is Aguirre that Lascañas is not yet on refugee status in another country?” the senator added.
It was Trillanes, who presented Lascañas in a press conference at the Senate to make a claim about Duterte’s alleged involvement in the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS). The former police officer has accused the President of allegedly paying DDS members to kill people when he was still mayor of Davao City. JPV/rga
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