MANILA - No release order for convicted rapist-killer Antonio Sanchez has been signed, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Tuesday.
"I have been informed that BuCor chief (Nicanor) Faeldon denies having signed a release order for Sanchez," he said in a statement.
Guevarra also said the Department of Justice (DOJ) did not receive any report regarding the matter.
The former mayor's family has claimed the Bureau of Corrections has issued a release order for him.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered Guevarra and Faeldon not to release Sanchez as a beneficiary of a 2013 law expanding the application of good conduct time allowances for convicts.
Sanchez, a former mayor of Calauan, Laguna, was sentenced in 1995 to 7 counts of reclusion perpetua (or 40 years imprisonment) over the 1993 rape-slay of Eileen Sarmenta and the murder of Allan Gomez.
- with a report from Mike Navallo, ABS-CBN News
Menardo Guevarra, Nicanor Faeldon, Antonio Sanchez, Rodrigo Duterte, rape-slay, Bureau of Corrections, Department of Justice