MANILA: The Philippines held a memorial on Monday for a South Korean businessman whose kidnapping and murder by rogue anti-narcotics police prompted a shock suspension of police from President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Diplomats, government officials and members of the South Korean community were joined by more than 100 uniformed police at the ceremony to mark the death of Jee Ick-joo, which caused the biggest scandal of Duterte’s seven-month-old presidency.
Mourners in black stood before a portrait of Jee placed on a stage covered in white flowers at a Christian service for a man whose death led to a Duterte taking police off the front lines of his anti-drugs campaign, his administration’s signature policy.
Duterte is forging ahead with a crackdown in which 7,600 people have been killed, a third in police operations, police have said.
