The Philippine Supreme Court has upheld the murder conviction of three policemen who killed a teenage boy at the height of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in 2017, a watershed moment that legal analysts say affirms the country’s justice system.
In a decision made public on Monday, the court found Arnel Oares, Jeremias Pereda and Jerwin Cruz guilty of murdering 17-year-old high school student Kian delos Santos while conducting an anti-drug operation in the city of Caloocan in Metro Manila.
They were each sentenced to 40 years’ jail and would have to pay the teen’s family a total of 275,000 pesos (US$4,700).
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The decision affirmed earlier rulings by a regional trial court and the Court of Appeals that had convicted the policemen without eligibility for parole, despite multiple appeals from the defendants.
The policemen were first found guilty in 2018, a year after delos Santos’ death.
Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros, who led Senate investigations into delos Santos’ murder in 2017, lauded the ruling.