矯正局長、刑務所内に脱出トンネル？ 本人は「ダイビング用プール」と釈明 比

【マニラＡＦＰ＝時事】フィリピンの矯正局長が、刑務所敷地内にある自宅わきに大規模な穴を掘っていたことが明らかになった。受刑者のための脱出用トンネルではないかとの疑惑が浮上しているが、本人はスキューバダイビング用のプールだと釈明している。（写真はニュー・ビリビッド刑務所の敷地内に掘られた巨大な穴）
　矯正局のジェラルド・バンタグ局長は、著名ラジオ司会者ペルシバル・マバサ氏の殺害を命じたとされており、停職処分を受けている。マバサ氏は先月、首都マニラの自宅前で、銃で撃たれ死亡した。
　検察はバンタグ氏について、十分な証拠がそろっていないとして起訴するか決めておらず、身柄は拘束していない。
　穴が掘られていたのは、マニラ市内のニュー・ビリビッド刑務所の敷地内にある局長の元自宅の庭。奥行き約６０メートルに及ぶものだった。穴はバンタグ氏の停職後に見つかった。
　バンタグ氏は地元メディアのインタビューで、穴を掘るよう指示したことは認めたが、受刑者を逃すためのトンネルではないと否定。スキューバダイビングが趣味のため「マニラで最も深いプール」を造りたかったと釈明している。
　だが、この穴から数メートル離れた場所には、２５メートルプールがすでに設置されている。
　クリスピン・レムラ司法長官は先週、バンタン氏は穴について、旧日本軍が第２次世界大戦中に東南アジア各地から盗み、フィリピンに埋蔵したとされる伝説の財宝を探すために掘ったと説明したと述べていた。
　バンタグ氏は２０１９年９月、当時大統領だったロドリゴ・ドゥテルテ氏により矯正局長に任命された。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/11/29-12:52）

A Philippine corrections chief accused of ordering the killing of a journalist has claimed that a huge pit dug beside his home in a Manila prison complex was not an escape tunnel for inmates but for scuba diving.
Estimated to be 60 metres (197 feet) deep and 40 metres wide, the gaping hole was found at the official residence of Gerald Bantag after he was suspended as director general of the Bureau of Corrections.
Police have accused Bantag of ordering the murder of prominent radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa, who was shot dead outside his home in the capital last month.
He has denied involvement in the killing.
Bantag, who remains free while prosecutors decide if there is enough evidence to charge him, has admitted to local media that he ordered the excavation at his home.
Bantag said he is a scuba diver and wanted to create the deepest swimming pool in Manila, according to an interview broadcast earlier this month.
But another swimming pool measuring about 25 metres long had already been built just several metres from the pit.
Bantag denied the hole was designed to be an escape tunnel for inmates locked up inside the overcrowded New Bilibid Prison, whose sprawling grounds contain Bantag's former home.
Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla said last week that Bantag had told him he was searching for the fabled treasure stolen from around Southeast Asia by Japanese forces in World War II and rumoured to be buried in the Philippines.
That was supposed to be a treasure hunt... I told him to stop it, Remulla said.
Bantag was appointed prisons chief in September 2019 by then president Rodrigo Duterte.
When AFP visited Bantag's former quarters on Wednesday, an armed security guard wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a marijuana plant leaf was part of a casually dressed team guarding the premises.
They said a yellow python, apparently a pet, was still slithering around the basement of the two-storey house located on the 400-hectare (988-acre) prison grounds.
Bantag also allegedly kept horses which he and detainees used to ride, said Sonny Del Rosario, chief of the Bureau of Corrections public information office.
That was obviously not part of the official rehabilitation programme for inmates, he told AFP on Wednesday.
It's the first time that a director owns horses. I don't know the reason, Del Rosario said.
There were also fighting cocks found in the prison grounds, which are not allowed, but Del Rosario said they belonged to another corrections officer, not Bantag.
Del Rosario said the prisons authority had experienced many controversies in the past and staff would carry on.
He insisted not all of us are corrupt.
The majority of the employees of the Bureau of Corrections are very, very good, he said.