Case to be filed against supects ‘this month’
Posted on March 23, 2011 by cebudailynews
By Ador Vincent S. Mayol, Reporter
Charges will be filed against the suspects in the kidnap and murder of 6-year-old Ellah Joy Pique before the end of March, said Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador.
Comendador, head of Task Force Ellah Joy, gave reporters no definite date as the victim’s father Renante said that he was not in a hurry for the case to be filed.
“We have to follow the process. We want to avoid committing another mistake,” Renante said in an interview.
Renante was referring to the filing of kidnapping with homicide charges against Norwegian national Sven-Erik Berger and Cebuana fianceé Karen Esdrelon.
The charges were junked by the prosecutor’s office for “insufficiency of evidence” after the couple managed proved their alibis.
Renante is coordinating with the interagency task force led by Comendador.
Renante said the task force has seven witnesses: two friends, two habal-habal drivers, two children and an “insider” who may have personal knowledge of the crime.
Authorities, Renante said, are just waiting for the result of the DNA test on bloodstains taken from the seat of the Mitsubishi Pajero owned by Santos.
The items were sent to Camp Crame in Manila for verification.
Renante said the bloodstains will be compared to Ellah Joy’s blood taken from the blanket with which the girl’s body was wrapped
But the lawyer of the British national and Cebuana Bella Ruby Santos who were linked to Ellah Joy’s death is optimistic that charges against her clients won’t prosper.
“They are barking up the wrong tree. They have no concrete evidence against my clients,” lawyer Ana Luz Cristal told CEBU DAILY NEWS.
Cristal said they can “sufficiently establish” the whereabouts of Bella Ruby Santos and Ian Charles Griffiths from Feb. 2 to Feb. 9.
She said the three children who claimed to have seen the abduction earlier pointed to Norwegian ntaional Sven-Erik Berger and Karen Esdrelon.
“We sympathize with the Pique family. We are outraged with what happened to Ellah Joy. We want justice for her and her family. (But) we want the name of my clients cleared,” Cristal said.
Santos is renting an apartment in Makati City while Griffiths is staying in Singapore.
They are being investigated by authorities after the Mitsubishi Pajero, which was purportedly used in the crime, was found inside Santos’ residence in barangay Inayagan, Naga City.
The British national stayed inside Santos’ residence before they went to Singapore last Feb. 9.
Since then, only Santos went back to the country.
Renante said he hopes to see Santos and Griffiths in court.
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