Couple in kidnap-slay of kid ‘should undergo trial’

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

CEBU CITY — Bella Ruby Santos and her British boyfriend Ian Charles Griffiths are likely to face trial for the abduction and murder of six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique last February 8.

Acting Cebu Provincial Prosecutor Joseph Berciles confirmed Tuesday that a three-member investigating panel, created to conduct the preliminary investigation into the complaint, found probable cause to indict the couple.

However, Berciles said he has yet to review the findings of Assistant Provincial Prosecutors Maria Luisa Ong, Anabelle Robles and Jose Edwin Renegado. Renante Pique, the victim’s father, said he has been waiting for the trial since the police filed this complaint last March 31.

“Ingon ani ang mangitag hustisya (This is what it’s like to seek justice),” he said. “Hasol kay ma-absent sa trabaho, malangay. Kapoy og lakaw-lakaw (Sometimes it’s a hassle because I have to miss work, or the proceedings get delayed. Going from one place to another can be tiring).”

But he is ready to wait some more even if takes years to resolve the case. “Ako lang gidasig akong kaugalingon aron makab-ot sa akong anak ang hustisya (I just have to focus on finding justice for my daughter),” Renante said.

The Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) used the testimonies of 10 people, including six supposed eyewitnesses, when it filed the kidnapping with homicide complaint against Santos and Griffiths.
A previous complaint against another couple, Karen Esdrelon and Erik Berger, was dismissed for lack of evidence.

In their new complaint, the police said that their witnesses saw Santos and Griffiths “before, during and after” the abduction of Pique.

The police also obtained testimonies from people who said they saw Griffiths park a vehicle on the side of the highway near Sayaw Beach in Barili town, the area where Pique’s body turned up.

Santos, in her counter-affidavit filed on May 6, denied they abducted Pique, who was last seen alive outside her school in Barangay Calajoan, Minglanilla town on February 8.

Santos said prosecution witnesses Ian Bruce Bansuan and Ligaya Escultos lied when they claimed to have witnessed the dumping of the victim’s body in the wee hours last February 9.

She said she and Griffiths missed their February 8 flight to Singapore and instead boarded a plane the following day, but that they stayed home from February 8 to 9.

In a separate interview, defense lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo said they will respect the prosecutors’ resolution on the case.

But Villagonzalo said a resolution to proceed to trial will be “erroneous” since the evidence from the police failed to show the couple was to blame for what happened to Ellah Joy.

If Berciles approves the resolution, Villagonzalo said the defense will neither seek reconsideration nor file a petition for review with the Department of Justice.

He said they would just prove the couple’s innocence during the court trial.
Cebu Provincial Police Acting Director Patrocinio Comendador said they had foreseen the prosecutors will find probable cause.
“We were very thorough in our investigation,” Comendador said by phone. “At least the case can move on.”

What’s the available evidence?

Judge Meinrado Paredes, in resolving last April the motion to quash the search warrant the police used in raiding Santos’s home, limited what could be deemed admissible.

Of the 16 items seized as a result of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)-led search and seizure in Inayagan, Naga, Judge Paredes resolved that nine items could not be used.

The 16 items seized included a Pajero, hair strands, a computer local area network cord, bloodstained bed sheet, a Nintendo cartridge, a USB stick, a card reader, a video camera with accessories and tapes, a rug, sex toys, a bloodstained blanket, empty porn compact disc covers and assorted compact discs, a supposedly bloodstained bed and table, certain documents, another bedsheet and two stones.

Paredes ordered the hair stands, computer cord, Nintendo cartridge, rug, sex toys, porn compact disc and disc covers, documents and stones suppressed and returned to Santos.

With the ruling, the prosecution will have to make do with the rest of the items in proving their kidnapping and murder charge.

The CIDG has intimated that online pornography may have motivated the abduction and killing.
They had intended to use the items like the sex toys and the pornographic compact disc covers as evidences in the case. As a result of Paredes’ ruling, they now cannot.

Judge Paredes explained the ruling.
Under Section 2, Rule 125 of the Rules of Court, he said, only items subject of the offense, property stolen and embezzled and other proceeds or fruits of the offense and property used or intended to be used as a means of committing an offense may be seized by virtue of warrants.

“Hair strands, rug, sex toys and stones are not properties subject of the offense, stolen or embezzled property used or intended to be used as means of committing a crime of kidnapping and homicide,” he said.

“They are not mentioned in the warrant,” he added.

He also ordered the suppression of the Pajero, said to be the vehicle used in the disposal of Ellah Joy’s body by the supposed suspects.

First, he explained, what was mentioned in the warrant was a vehicle with plate number—LHJ382. The Pajero seized actually had a different plate number, LMJ382. (GMD/KNR/KAL/Sun.Star Cebu)

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/2011/06/22/couple-kidnap-slay-kid-should-undergo-trial-162510

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