Philippines most wanted general has been arrested in Manila. Notoriously branded as "The Butcher" by human rights advocates, retired Major General Jovito Palparan was caught last Friday after more than three years in hiding.
Palparan was under surveillance for a couple of months by a team of agent from the National Bureau of Investigation-Anti-Organized Transnational Crimes Division (NBI-AOTCD) and Naval Intelligence and Security Force (NISF), Rappler, a local media outlet, reported.
On Monday of August 11, the fugitive was spotted leaving his hideout in Sta Mesa, Manila, the Philippines' capital city to allegedly transact and withdraw money from a nearby ATM machine.
Sta Mesa was a safe house for more than three years to Palparan, a man perceived as a scourge to the so-called "people's armed struggle. It "is ironically located near the hub of student activism," the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
After being positively identified, authorities stormed down on his hideout and arrested the fugitive, alone and unarmed, said Secretary Leila de Lima of the Department of Justice in an interview with the local news network, GMA News.
Palparan is wanted for charges on human rights violations like murder, torture and enforced disappearances. He became notorious during his key deployments in Northern Philippines region where he served as commanding genera from 2005 to 2006.
Palparan, along with three other military personnel are accused of two counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention in connection to the abduction of two college students of the University of the Philippines, Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno in 2006.
Empeno and Cadapan disappeared while supposedly conducting research on peasant struggle in a farming community. Witnesses to the disappearance alleged both Cadapan and Empeno were tortured, raped, and burned to death by Palparan's troops.
Pointing to the troops commanded by Palparan, the 24th Infantry Battalion, rights group "Karapatan (Rights) labeled his division as "torture" battalion.
