British solon says UK may have aided PH drug war through spyware sale

Official Parliamentary portrait of Lloyd Russel-Moyle in June 2017 (Photo By Chris McAndrew – https://api20170418155059.azure-api.net/photo/xXTvcHDg.jpeg?crop=MCU_3:4&quality=80&download=trueGallery: https://beta.parliament.uk/media/xXTvcHDg, CC BY 3.0)

A British Member of Parliament (MP) slammed the United Kingdom (UK) government for being “complicit” in the alleged extrajudicial killings in the President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s campaign to eradicate illegal drugs.

Lloyd Russel-Moyle in an interview with ANC said that in 2016, the UK sold almost 11 million pesos worth of hi-tech spyware.

The Philippines’ purchase included International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI)-Catchers, devices that are designed to eavesdrop on phone conversations and internet activity surveillance tools.

“The president has been referred to the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes against humanity for the way he has dealt with some elected officials and other people,” he said, adding that it was “in the most brutal way.”

“Now the British government has been selling spyware and other forms of weaponry to the Filipino government,” he continued in the same interview.

Furthermore, according to Russel-Moyle, Brittain released a report in 2016 which listed the Philippines as a country ‘of concern.’

Citing this report, he said that this means their government has to “monitor closely and limit weapon sales” to the Philippines.

“We haven’t seem to have done that and therefore if those sales are aiding the crimes that the President is committing, we are then complicit in that process,” he said in the ANC interview.

In a similar statement on February, Russel-Moyle who is also a member of the committees on arms export controls of the government told the Guardian that this move makes the British government “complicit in the deaths of thousands of Filipinos.”

“This sad case shows that our arms export control regime is broken. The government is failing in its basic legal duty,” he further said.

In his interview with ANC, he also said that it is a very difficult task to monitor all sales to countries.

“But that is why we have a criteria that says that we should presume against selling if the country is engaged in repressive acts and a referral to the ICC is an indication that the government has engaged not in legitimate war on drugs but illegitimate war on drugs that is being executed in a very brutal and opportune way,” he said.

Russel-Moyle then said that he will raise the concern to the House of Parliament and House of Questions to scrutinize and “stop the sales that might be in breach of the consolidated criteria.”

“I will raise this to the House of parliament. I will raise this to the house of questions and we will continue to scrutinize to stop the sales that might in breach of the consolidated criteria,” he said.

On February 8, the Palace confirmed that the ICC was set to conduct a preliminary examination on the President and the war on drugs.

(Read: ICC to conduct ‘preliminary examination’ vs. Duterte, PH war on drugs)