President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Friday rejected a proposed meeting between him and high-profile drug convict Jaybee Sebastian.
“I do not talk to criminals. He can go to the fiscal if he wants,” the Chief Executive said in a press conference early Friday morning.
A lawyer of Sebastian earlier said the latter was willing to tell the President everything about the alleged drug operations inside the national penitentiary.
This, after the riot inside the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa City that resulted in the death of convicted Chinese drug lord Tony Co and the wounding of three other high-profile convicts, including Sebastian.
After the incident, Sebastian’s lawyer said his client was willing to talk, not in Congress but with the President, and that his statement would be doubly explosive.
Duterte said he would not meet with Sebastian.
“Sinasabi ko hiningi ninyo lahat ‘yan eh. (I’ve) been telling everybody, ‘yang drugs na ‘yan, hinihingi ninyo sa buhay ninyo. Dadating ‘yan. I said be careful of what you wish for or what you want because you might get it,” he stated.
“Dreaming of money. Living in filth . . . at the expense of your fellow human beings. It will come. As always, the comeuppance and the law of karma, I assure you, that is a very valid universal statement,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sebastian gave his sworn statement to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) detailing his version of the stabbing incident at the NBP on September 28.
In his sworn statement he issued on September 29 in the presence of his lawyer Eduardo Arriba and Roxanne Sebastian, the 36-year-old prisoner said it was fellow prisoner Tomas Doniña, a man Clarence Dongail, who stabbed him in the right chest.
He said he was at NBP Building 14’s mess hall watching TV when he was attacked.
Prior to the attack, he said Dongail and Doniña confronted him for allegedly plotting to kill Dongail’s wife Grace. (with a report from Jonathan M. Hicap) (ELENA L. ABEN)