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.

JUST IN: SOJ Guevarra:

I have been informed that BUCOR chief Faeldon denies having signed a release order for Sanchez. Likewise, no report on such matter has been received by the DOJ. (Sanchez's family claimed that the BuCor issued a release order last Aug. 20.)

— Mike Navallo (@mikenavallo) August 27, 2019

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.

• Duterte rejected release of rapist-killer Sanchez: Go

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