{"id":280671,"date":"2016-12-30T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T06:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=280671"},"modified":"2016-12-30T06:00:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T06:00:24","slug":"philippines-duterte-i-threw-suspect-from-helicopter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=280671","title":{"rendered":"Philippines Duterte: I threw suspect from helicopter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to throw corrupt officials from helicopters mid-air, saying he has done it before.<\/p>\n

“If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out,” said Mr Duterte, who is waging war on corruption and drugs.<\/p>\n

It’s the latest claim by the president that he has personally carried out extra-judicial killings.<\/p>\n

His spokesman played down the remarks, which he described as “urban legend”.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month another spokesman Martin Andanar said his blunt-speaking boss should be taken “seriously but not literally” when he said he had shot dead three men while mayor of Davao.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr Duterte made his latest comments in a speech to victims of a typhoon in the central Philippines on Tuesday. A video clip of his remarks was posted by his office.<\/p>\n

He threatened the helicopter punishment for anyone who might steal the financial aid he was promising.<\/p>\n

“I have done this before, why would I not do it again?” he said to applause.<\/p>\n

He suggested his victim or victims were kidnappers who had murdered a hostage. It is not clear when or where the incident took place.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the president appeared to distance himself from his earlier remarks.<\/p>\n

“Helicopter to throw a person? And if that is true, I will not admit it,” he said in an interview with ABS-CBN news.<\/p>\n

The president has made a similar claims in the past – and has a history of contradicting himself.<\/p>\n

On 16 December he told the BBC he had shot dead three criminal suspects while he was mayor of Davao.<\/p>\n

“I killed about three of them… I don’t know how many bullets from my gun went inside their bodies. It happened and I cannot lie about it.”<\/p>\n

He made a similar claim to business leaders in Manila a few days earlier, when he said he used to cruise Davao on a motorbike “looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”<\/p>\n

Mr Duterte was mayor of the southern city of Davao for two decades, presiding over a big fall in crime but also being accused of sponsoring death squads.<\/p>\n

As president he has pledged to root out drugs and corruption in the Philippines, at the cost of millions of lives if necessary.<\/p>\n

Nearly 6,000 people are said to have been killed by police, vigilantes and mercenaries in the Philippines since Mr Duterte launched a war on drugs after being elected in May.<\/p>\n

Opposition politicians and human rights groups have called for his impeachment, but he remains very popular with voters who want him to clean up the country.<\/p>\n

Last week the Philippines independent human rights watchdog said it would investigate President Duterte’s claims that he personally killed drug suspects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to throw corrupt officials from helicopters mid-air, saying he has done it before. “If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out,” said Mr Duterte, who is waging war on corruption and drugs. It’s the latest claim by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":280672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[14608,3],"class_list":["post-280671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-duterte","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}