Updated

A retired police officer who linked the Philippine president, when he was mayor of a southern city, to hundreds of extrajudicial killings in a local anti-drug crackdown says he's ready to testify in court and help authorities gather evidence of the slayings he says he and other paid assassins carried out.

Arturo Lascanas told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday the deadly campaign he and others allegedly carried out on orders of then Davao city Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was "95 percent" similar to the bloody anti-drug crackdown now unfolding across the Philippines under Duterte, currently the president.

Lascanas linked Duterte to the Davao killings in testimony at a Senate inquiry this week. Duterte has not replied in detail but has denied condoning unlawful killings.