Police file case against Brit, Filipina partner
By Karlon N. Rama, Elias O. Baquero, and Gerome M. Dalipe
Friday, April 1, 2011
SUPPORTED by circumstantial evidence and testimonies of 10 persons—including the affidavit of six eye-witnesses—the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) filed yesterday kidnapping with homicide charges against Bella Ruby Santos and British national Ian Charles Griffiths.
The CPPO gathered testimonies from people who saw Santos and Griffiths “before, during and after” the abduction of six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique in Calajoan, Minglanilla in the afternoon of Feb. 8, on board their sports utility vehicle, a dark blue three-door Mitsubishi Pajero.
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The police also got testimonies from people who saw Griffiths park the same vehicle on the side of the highway near Sayaw Beach in Barili around midnight of Feb. 8.
The witnesses said they saw Griffiths alight from the vehicle, open the rear door of the Pajero and remove something wrapped in white, which he then dropped off a cliff nearby. They said a woman was with Griffiths that night but they could not make out her face because she slid down on the seat.
Cybersex
“It appears that (Ellah Joy) Pique was abducted by Santos and Griffiths for the purpose of exploiting the victim for the suspects’ cybersex business,” read the investigation report signed by Chief Insp. Fermin Ar-mendarez III, head of the CPPO Criminal Investigation and Detection Team.
That investigation report, together with other affidavits and pieces of evidence, were submitted by the CPPO to the provincial prosecutor’s office to support the charges against Santos and Griffiths.
Although none of their witnesses saw the actual killing of Pique, the police said they are confident they have a strong case.
“Direct evidence of the killing is not indispensable for establishing probable cause when circumstantial evidences are sufficiently established,” the CPPO said.
Griffiths and Santos may be facing another charge.
Child porn
Lawyer Joan Saniel, Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB) executive director, said the group is gathering evidence to support the filing of a child pornography case against the couple.
CLB lawyers, including Saniel, will lead the prosecution panel in the Pique case.
Saniel said they were confident that the case against the duo would be elevated to
court.
As this developed, Senior Supt. Louie Oppus, head of Task Force Ellah Joy Pique, asked the provincial prosecutor’s office to issue a hold departure order against Griffiths and Santos “to prevent the suspects from evading the prosecution.”
Alien Control Officer Casimiro Madarang Jr. of the Bureau of Immigration (BI Cebu) yesterday said that even though a case has been filed against Griffiths, nobody can prevent the British national from traveling due to the absence of a hold departure order.
Travel
“At present, Griffiths and Santos can still travel freely because there is no basis to hold them at the airport. We can only prevent them from departing if there is a court order,” Madarang said.
The lawyers of Griffiths and Santos said they will answer the charges.
The couple’s lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo said the admission of the police that their case was based on circumstantial evidence and testimonies of witnesses is “another set of loopholes.”
“They (police) better be able to substantiate it (complaint) because we are going to file criminal and administrative charges against them,” said lawyer Ana Luz Cristal in a text message to Sun. Star Cebu.
CPPO Director Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comen-dador Jr. led the filing of the complaint at 10:30 a.m. yesterday, accompanied by Inocencio dela Cerna and Glenn Condor, counsels for the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7, and CLB officers.
Come out
Renante Pique, Ellah Joy’s father, said he hopes the case against Griffiths and Santos would prosper in court.
He urged parents of other victims to come out, and end human trafficking and child abuse in Cebu.
The CPPO report said Ellah Joy might have gone “awry,” prompting her abductors to kill her.
A day after she was abducted, Ellah Joy’s body was found wrapped in a white sheet at the bottom of a cliff in Barangay Sayaw, Barili.
Results of the DNA test on samples of suspected bloodstain from the Pajero that was seized from Santos’ residence in Barangay Inayagan, City of Naga but the police during a search was not among the evidence submitted to the prose-cutor’s office.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 said had no hand in the investigation leading to the filing of charges against Griffiths and Santos.
Witnesses
“Our agents were pre-sent during the operation that resulted in the discovery and seizure of the evidences they are now using but they were only there as observers,” said NBI 7 Director Edward Villarta in an interview yesterday.
Among the witnesses in the case are two children, aged nine and 12. They were classmates of Ellah Joy and were walking with her from school when a dark-colored vehicle stopped next to them. Inside the vehicle was a big male foreigner and a Filipina.
The children said the Filipina asked Ellah Joy where she lived and offered her a ride.
A tricycle driver and a habal-habal driver also executed separate affidavits, saying they saw the same vehicle, a Pajero, park along the road in Calajoan. One of them said he overheard the Filipina who was on the passenger seat, next to the male foreigner who was driving the vehicle, offer Ellah Joy a ride.
Cause
“The statements of the witnesses, notwithstanding the evidence seized during the search warrant are more than sufficient to establish probable cause to warrant the filing of an appropriate charge of kidnapping with homicide,” said Armendarez.
Renante also executed his affidavit and narrated the circumstances that occurred during the disappearance of his daughter.
Earlier, the police charged Sven Erik Berger, a Norwegian national, and Karen Castro Esdrelon, a Cebuana nurse, with kidnapping and homicide. But the case was dismissed by the provincial prosecutor for lack of evidence.
Madarang said Griffith holds a British passport with number 801075081, while Santos possesses a Philippine passport with number XX3003444.
Griffths has been in and out of Cebu often since 2006, but it was only in the past 11 months that he arrived in and departed from Cebu 17 times. During these trips, he was always accompanied by his girlfriend, Santos.
Ticket
Madarang submitted a certification to the PNP in connection with BI records on Griffiths and Santos’s overseas travels.
Ajish Henry Morris, manager of SilkAir Philippines, said in a letter to Senior Supt. Ramon Rafael of the Police Regional Office that at 11 a.m. on Feb. 9, Griffiths and Santos approached the SilkAir Mactan airport office to purchase at “the last mi-nute,” a one-way ticket to Hong Kong on flight MI588 scheduled to depart at 3:25 p.m. on the same day.
But the couple had earlier bought tickets for Hong Kong on board Cebu Pacific. Even though their ticket with Cebu Pacific was still valid, the airline’s flight to Hong Kong was scheduled to depart past 9 p.m. yet.
The two came back to Cebu later but separately and they returned to the Philippines through the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Clark, Pampanga.
Griffiths left for Hong Kong on Feb. 27, a day before the provincial prose-cutor’s office dismissed the kidnapping and homicide charges against Berger and Esdrelon, through DMIA and never came back.
Police file case against Brit, Filipina partner | Sun.Star
Re: The Pedo's Cartographic Sketch who raped a 6 yr. old girl
Originally Posted by peewee_toot
^^gi publicized lagi na. pagka toy2x sa abugado.
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