PAJERO OWNER TO FIGHT BACK 3/9/2011
Lawyer questions Naga raid; police has ‘photos’ of suspects
By Ador Vincent Mayol, Reporter
The woman who “owns” the Mitsubishi Pajero that police has linked to the Feb. 8 kidnapping of 6-year-old Ellah Joy Pique is no longer in Cebu.
She hasn’t be charged with a crime yet, but is preparing a full legal defense after the Pajero was confiscated.
The woman, a resident of Naga city, has retained the services of lawyer Salvador Solima, the same legal counsel who defended the first pair of suspects in the child’s disappearance, Norwegian Sven-Erik Berger and Karen Esdrelon.
Solima told CEBU DAILY NEWS he hasn’t met the woman yet but was contacted yesterday by a friend on her behalf to collaborate with “several” other lawyers based in Makati City for her defense.
Solima said the woman left her residence in barangay Inayagan, Naga, and boarded a flight to Manila on Feb. 9, which is the day Ellah Joy’s body was found at the bottom of a cliff in Barili town, southewestern Cebu.
CEBU DAILY NEWS is withholding the woman’s name at the lawyer’s request since no charges have been filed against her.
Her name, however, appeared in the search warrant of the police operatives who raided her gated residence in Naga City last Friday, confiscating the parked Pajero and several items inside the house, including personal photos of her.
The warrant application also referred to an unidentifed male foreigner as her partner in the kidnapping and murder of the Ellah Joy, who was abducted while walking home from school.
Solima questioned the manner the March 4 police search was made and said he would file a motion to quash the warrant in court.
“Grabe, they ransacked the whole house and confiscated pictures so that they can be shown to people who will testify against her later,” he said.
Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador, who earlier said bloodstains found in the Pajero were sent to Manila for DNA testing, said police had photographs ready of their suspects.
With this, he said there was no need for cartographic sketches to be made.
Yesterday he hinted that the case was in the bag, saying investigators have established the “means, motive and opportunity” of the perpetrators of the crime.
The three-door Pajero with plate number YMJ-382 was confiscated and brough to the police compound in Camp Sotero Cabahug in Cebu City. Only a caretaker was in the residence when the search was made.
Comendador, spokesman of the PNP Regional Office Task Force on Ellah Joy, said police are looking in “cybersex crime” as a possible angle.
While they have no witnesses of the actual death of Ellah Joy, he said there were several adult witnesses to provide strong circumstantial evidence, including two people who saw the body being dumped from the cliff in Barili town.
Comendador said there would be no need to exhume Ellah Joy’s body for DNA tests to match the bloodstains found in the Pajero because tissues of the victm were earlier preserved before she was buried.
Meanwhile, Solima met a collaborating laywer, the woman’s sibling, the house caretaker and family driver yesterday for a private conference.
Solima said they could file a petition to quash the search warrant issued by the court so the evidence taken by the police will be invalidated.
“There was no basis in the determination of finding probable cause which led to the issuance of a the search warrant. I pity the owner of the house which looked like it was hit by a storm after the search,” said Solima.
The lawyer said he learned that photographs were removed from the house, possibly to show to witnesses later.
“The search warrant didn't authorize taking photos,” he said.
Solima represented Norwegian engineer Sven-Erik Berger and Cebuana Karen Esdrelon who were earlier held responsible by police for the kidnap-slay of Ellah Joy.
The couple, however, were released from police custody after the Cebu Provincial Prosecutors' Office dismissed the charges of kidnaping with homicide against them for “insufficient evidence.”
Solima said the recent development of the case is inconsistent with what was established in the previous investigation.
He recalled that police witnesses said they saw a black Pajero in the abduction but his client's vehicle is blue.
“Where did the police get those bloodstains: Talisay or Lorega? We don't even know if the bloodstains came from a human being,” said the lawyer.
He said the house caretaker insists the vehicle’s license plate was not tampered and that maybe the police altered it.
Last Friday, members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) applied for the search warrant from Cebu Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Meinrado Paredes.
The CIDG-7 led Chief Insp. Fermin Armendarez said they needed to search the house to take possession of the “Pajero with plate number LHJ 382, digital camera and computer storage devices, mattres foam, bedsheets, blankets, computer sets and printers, receipts, water bills, electric bills, fax machines, telephone wires, photos and other material and physical evidence” inside a residence in barangay Inayagan, Naga.
The CIDG-7 banked on the testimonies of two adult witnesess, a man and a woman, who said they saw a woman and a male foreigner dump a white sack off a cliff in Barili last Feb. 8.
The witnesses said they were on their way home on a motorbike from a birthday party in Barili when they saw a Pajero slowly traversing the national road in Barili.
In their affidavit, the witnesses said they saw the Pajero stop and park beside the road near Sayaw Beach, in barangay Sayaw, Barili.
They said the male foreigner “pulled out something from the rear portion of the vehicle—a white rolled object, seemingly a size of an ordinary sack—and placed it on top of the cemented dike beside the road. A few seconds after, the said white object was dumped off to the cliff.”
One witness said he “clearly saw” the foreigner whom he described as 5'11 to 6'0 in height, firm build, fair complexion, muscular legs, wearing a black polo shirt, “Top Sider” type shoes and a a black baseball cap.
They couldn't describe his female companion because she stayed in the vehicle and was “sliding down her seat, covering her appearance.”
The two witnesses noted the vehicle's plate number which is LHJ 382.
CIDG-7 personnel said they were able to trace where the Pajero was parked and conducted a surveillance from March 1 to 3.
The police said they were able to peep through a gap on the house's gate and confirmed the Pajero had the plate number LHJ 382.
Also, the police claimed to have seen a “woman” who fits to the description given by neighbors as to the physical features of the subject of the search warrant. /With a report from Chito Aragaon and Jhunnex Napallacan
Re: The Pedo's Cartographic Sketch who raped a 6 yr. old girl
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