The Philippines is investigating Senate security personnel who fired indiscriminately as a senator facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant took refuge in the legislative building and later escaped.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla on Wednesday said the shooting was not an attack on the Senate, stressing the area was empty when shots were fired.
Remulla identified Senate security chief Mao Aplasca as the first to fire. National Police Chief Jose Melencio Nartatez said investigators recovered 44 shell casings from four weapons and have summoned Aplasca for a gun test, which he has yet to comply with.
Security footage obtained by investigators shows Aplasca apparently firing a rifle. Remulla said the president has been briefed on the findings but has yet to issue orders. The case is being forwarded to the Justice Department for further investigation.
Nartatez said Senator Ronald Dela Rosa left the legislative building and boarded a vehicle registered under the name of his ally, Senator Robin Padilla, before heading to an undisclosed location.
The shooting came last week as Dela Rosa, 64, a former national police chief and key figure in ex-president Rodrigo Duterte's controversial anti-drug campaign, took refuge in the Senate starting May 11 after the ICC confirmed it had sealed an arrest warrant against him on suspicion of crimes against humanity.
The Senate was shaken by dozens of gunshots and the presence of armed soldiers who stormed the building to arrest him later that day. Dela Rosa was Duterte's right-hand man, overseeing the brutal drug crackdown that killed thousands of people in extrajudicial executions. Duterte was arrested last year and is awaiting trial before the ICC in The Hague.
