from AHRC Press Centre
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date Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 6:38 PM
subject Resend: PHILIPPINES: Torture victims acquitted after eight year trial
mailed-by www.humanrights.asia
We are resending the following statement with the correct links
including to the 16 page decision. That file is available at:
http://www.humanrights.asia/countries/philippines/cases/Philippines_CourtDecision_Region11_Branch35_CrCase10655.pdf.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
AHRC-PRL-026-2010
PHILIPPINES: Torture victims acquitted after eight year trial
Hong Kong, November 2, 2010) The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
is pleased to inform you that the four men, three of whom were
illegally arrested and detained, were acquitted by a local court from
two charges of illegal possession of explosives. The court found that
the cases laid against them "exhibits a straightforward violation of
due process".
Three of the accused, Jejhon Macalinsal, Abubakar Amilhasan and Arsul
Ginta, were illegally arrested during a police raid on April 24, 2002
in Barangay (village) Calumpang, General Santos City. They were
charged with illegal possession of explosives using the evidence
planted by the policemen who were led by Police Superintendent
Bartolome Baluyot, former director of the Regional Police Office (PRO
XII). The evidence was planted at the house where the accused were
staying during the arrest.
In his 16 page decision
presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court (RTC), ruled that, "As
gleaned from records of these cases the pieces of evidence presented
by the prosecution fall short of the constitutional guarantee, the
execution of search warrants suffers from several fatal flows, equally
deadly".
The violations that the policemen have committed were:
1. Use of false witnesses: When the police served the court order
(search warrant) to search the houses where the accused where staying,
the two village officials who stood as witnesses were legally
unacceptable. Searches can only be valid when the place to be searched
is within the jurisdiction of these village officials.
But the two officials, Sabina Castomayor and Jose Arrojo, who came
with the policemen when they implemented the order, were officials of
Barangay Labangal not Calumpang. Under the procedure in conducting
searches, policemen are required to have village officials from the
same village to be present as witnesses.
2. Scheming and planting of evidence: The issuance by another court
of an order to conduct searches, which justified the policemen to
conduct searches at the houses at 3am on April 24, 2002, were also a
product of scheming by the policemen and a prelude to their planting
of evidence on the accused all along.
Firstly, at 11am on April 23, 2002, a day before the policemen raided
the house two gunmen entered one of the three houses wearing
balaclavas. Once inside, one of them gave Jejhon Macalinsal, one of
the four accused, a piece of paper with a telephone number written on
it. He was forced to dial the telephone number and tell the person on
the other end that: "There's a bomb in the front and at the back of
their office". The gunmen later left after they made sure that
Macalinsal had done it.
The telephone number was later found to belong to the office of Bayan
Telecommunications (BayanTel), a local telecommunication company in
the city. The company had a caller Identification System in their
telephone system which enabled them to accurately determine the
telephone number used in calling and the name of the subscriber that
the telephone is registered to.
The policemen used the said record of the phone call and subscription
to deliberately falsely charge the four accused. In his numerous media
interviews, Supt. Baluyot declared them as responsible in bombing
Fitmart Mall in General Santos City on April 21, 2002. But strangely,
none of the accused was charged with murders in relation to the death
of civilians in that bombing incident.
Secondly, the scheming justified the policemen's application of
search orders from Judge Antonio Lubao of RTC, Branch 22 in the same
city, claiming that the occupants of the house were keeping M14 and
M16 armalite riles. The court then issued orders for policemen to
search the house owned by Aron Sala. Sala was not physically present
during the raid but was included in the charges.
Sala was studying in Marawi City, more than ten hours travel from
General Santos City where the raid took place.
3. Arbitrary inclusion of the accused in the cases: Aron Sala's name
was arbitrarily included for the simple reason that the telephone
number used by Macalinsal to make a fake bomb threat upon the
instruction of the armed men is registered in his name. The phone call
and subscription were used by the policemen as evidence in justifying
their application for the issuance of the court order to search Sala's
house.
When the police conducted the raid they also searched the two other
houses that were not part of the court's order. The policemen also
prevented the three accused and the occupants from supervising what
they were doing inside the house when they were conducting the
searches.
The policemen who stood as witnesses for the prosecution did not deny
or challenge the claim of the accused that they were not in possession
of the evidence used on them--a mortar and a grenade. The court ruled
that they were planted and taken inside the house by "three persons
wearing black bonnets and combat shoes who entered the compound
together with the raiding team who threw a sack full of something in
the house of one of the accused's mother-in-law."
4. Policemen could not identify the accused in court: During the
court hearing, the two policemen, Senior Police Officer 1 (SPO1) Rex
Diongon and Police Inspector (PI) Harrison Martinez, who served the
search orders, "did not point categorically where in particular they
seized the pieces of evidence they presented in support of their
cases". Martinez could also not identify in open court which one was
Amilhasan and which one was Macalinsal.
5. Police try to extort money in exchange for dropping cases: On May
12, 2002, while Arsul Ginta was in custody he was approached by three
persons who introduced themselves as police officers. He was told that
they were given instructions by Supt. Baluyot to negotiate the
dropping of charges against him. He was told that the policemen could
withdraw from prosecuting the complaint if he paid Php 150,000 (USD
3,500). But Ginta refused to do so.
Before Supt. Baluyot retired from the police service he had previous
records of having involvement in illegally arresting, detaining,
planting evidence and torturing persons arrested during police
operations. He is also one of the policemen the Commission on Human
Rights (CHR) found to have tortured and violated the rights of the
Abadilla Five while they were in police custody.
Read this statement for more details: Abadilla Five's nearly
13-year-old complaint over human rights violation remains pending at
the Ombudsman
Although the four accused have been acquitted from these charges,
they are still being tried for charges of illegal possession of
firearms before the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) Branch 3 in the same
city. The evidence that the policemen and the prosecutors used in this
case was also planted; and used in the case in which the accused had
already been acquitted from.
In an interview conducted in Tagalog with Abina Rombaoa, one of the
relatives of the accused, by the AHRC, Abina speaks about the court's
decision, the suffering of the accused and their families:
Link to YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhmmip795NE
For more details about the case, visit our previous appeal:
Trial of three men yet to begin after three years
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2005/1070/
Delay in trial due to possible neglect by the court and prosecutor
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2005/1153/
Court commences trial of three men due to pressure following frequent
postponement
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2005/1246/
Trial of torture victims’ case postponed yet again
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2006/1656/
# # #
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights
issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
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