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Rodrigo Duterte called a top UN official an “idiot” and “joker” for urging murder investigations be launched against him after the Philippines’ president admitted to “personally” killing criminals while he was mayor of Davao City.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on Tuesday said Philippine judicial authorities should probe Duterte’s accounts of having carried out killings.

“This guy [Zeid] is ever the joker or crazy,” Duterte said during a televised speech on Thursday, and repeatedly called him “stupid”.

“You UN officials, sitting there on your asses, we pay you your salaries. You idiot, do not tell me what to do … Who gave you the right?”
Duterte told businessmen last week that as mayor he killed criminals on the streets, and later admitted shooting dead three men involved in a kidnapping case during a police gunfight in the late 1980s.

Zeid said investigations should also be opened into deadly anti-drug campaigns in Davao when Duterte was mayor, as well as the “shocking” number of deaths during the current nationwide campaign.

More than 6 000 people have been killed as part of Duterte’s crackdown, one third by police and the rest still officially under investigation. Duterte says the shootings by police were in self-defence.

— AFP