CHR: Randy Echanis tortured to death

Commission on Human Rights (CHR) revealed Friday slain Anakpawis leader, and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Randall “Randy” Echanis was tortured to death.

CHR Commissioner Leah Armamento confirmed Echanis was tortured based on his autopsy during an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.

ADVERTISEMENT

She said CHR investigators joined in the autopsy conducted on the human rights activist’s body as requested by his family.

“We saw that Randall Echanis suffered 15 wounds. He has two wounds that were like slicing, a kind of wound that is incised. Here on the side, he was like cut, and then there was also injury on his head by a blunt object,” she said. On his back, there were also 12 incised wounds that did not penetrate the lungs. “So it’s like superficial. It’s up to the muscular area, to cause pain,” said Armamento.

“In both eyes, he had black eyes, and the one that caused his death is the stabbing of the so-called what they call in the autopsy report as the spike, or like a knitting needle which they thrust from one side of his back to the other side. So from the left to the right, hitting the aorta, through and through, but it did not exit, because it has a hook,” she further said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“So you can see that the killing is not merely just to kill him but to make him suffer before he was eventually killed.”

Also read: DOJ ‘may consider’ probing killing of human rights worker

CHR: Peasant leader Echanis tortured to death

Former Anakpawis representative Ariel Casilao claimed Echanis, 72, was undergoing medical treatment and unarmed when “police forces” raided his house.

ADVERTISEMENT

Anakpawis posted on Twitter that Erlinda, widow of Echanis, said his husband’s body “bore torture marks, multiple stab, and gunshot wounds.”

Erlinda also claimed that police officers “forcibly took” Echanis’ remains from the funeral parlor to return it to Pink Petal Funeral Homes in La Loma.

Armamento said the CHR is not yet sure of the angle behind the killing of Echanis and his neighbor.

“We are not saying it is from the left or right, but the CHR is just conducting an investigation and proceeds where the evidence leads us,” she said.