Manila, Philippines. All eleven members of a Police Precinct in Manila were suspended and relieved after ABS-CBN television showed a footage of a naked detainee being tortured by a police officer.
The man is a suspected thief caught stealing in the slum area of Tondo District. The television network said that the cell phone footage was obtained from an informer who requested not to be identified.
The footage showed the naked man screaming on the floor in a foetal position with his genitals bound while a man was pulling the rope and whipping him.
Metropolitan Manila Police Chief Leocadio Santiago relieved the 11-member police station and ordered its commander, Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug, investigated for criminal acts.
It was learned from ABS-CBN that the man being tortured later on died. Maximum penalty under an anti-torture law passed last year is 40 years in prison if the victim dies.
It is not clear if the 10 others will also face charges, but that will be part of the investigation, police said. New officers were assigned to the precinct under investigation.
President Benigno Aquino III said torture is not a government policy. Asked about the incident at a news conference, Aquino said “the police also are entitled to their day in court and to due process.”
Ms Coco Quisumbing, who is an official of the Commission on Human Rights, said they would separately conduct an investigation of the torture allegations. She added that she was aghast after seeing police officers in the video seemingly showing indifference.
Amnesty International researcher Hazel Galang said the incident can serve as a test case for the country’s anti-torture law and the Aquino government’s determination to implement it.
It was not the first time that video footage of alleged police torture has surfaced in the Philippines. Earlier this year, a police colonel was seen punching a suspect whose face was covered with a plastic bag.
More recently, another video showed three handcuffed teenage boys, two of them were being forced to kiss each other.
The colonel in the video was relieved and placed under investigation while the probe into the other case was incomplete because there were no witnesses and the boys did not file a complaint, police said. ?
(Source: Associated Press)