No legal basis
Friday, April 8, 2011
JUDGE Meinrado Paredes cited lack of factual and legal basis for denying the motion filed by the lawyers of Bella Ruby Santos to quash the search warrant the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7 made as basis to seize evidence that could help solve the abduction and killing of six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique.
Paredes, presiding judge of Regional Trial Court Branch 13, though, ordered the return of 10 items to Santos, including the blue Pajero, which the Task Force Ellah Joy considers crucial to the case.
“There was no authority for the CIDG to seize a Pejero with plate number LMJ 382.
The applicant and the witness led the court to issue a search warrant for the seizure of the vehicle with plate number LHJ 382,” Paredes said.
Change of tide
The defense believes the kidnapping with homicide charge against Santos and her British boyfriend Ian Charles Griffiths will weaken with the return of the vehicle.
The prosecutor, however, insists the court ruling will not affect the merit of the case.
The Cebu Provincial Police Office charged the couple last Feb. 8.
Police suspected them of snatching Pique outside her school for their cybersex business, an accusation Santos has denied.
Authorities raided Santos’s house in Barangay Inayagan, City of Naga, Cebu last March 4 and seized several items.
Santos, through her Makati-based lawyers, filed the motion to quash search warrant.
Rameses Villagonzalo, one of her lawyers, said they will respect the court ruling.
He described the order to return the Pajero to their client as a mini victory, as the vehicle will no longer be used as evidence.
Inocencio dela Cerna, CIDG 7 counsel, said the ruling will only bolster their case against the couple, as they can focus on witnesses.
In his order, Judge Paredes said the surveillance of the house subject of the search, including the Pajero, was “not hearsay.”
“It was based on the personal knowledge of witnesses,” he said.
Probable cause
Paredes also said there was probable cause in the issuance of the search warrant.
“In resolving the motion to quash the search warrant, the court considered only the evidence presented by the three witnesses during the hearing of the application.
The only issue in a motion to quash search warrant is the existence or non-existence of probable cause at the time of its issuance,” he said.
Apart from the vehicle, Paredes also ordered hair strands, LAN cord, Nin-tendo game cartridge, a rug, *** toys, empty porn compact disc covers and assorted CDs, waiver, IDs and passport and stones returned to Santos.
The judge said the court will keep the bed sheet with suspected blood-stains, USB and card reader, video cam with accessories and tapes, the blanket and mattress with suspected bloodstains and the bed and table.
He said the CIDG 7 may subject all the items retained by the court to examination, photographing and testing.
The respondent may also ask to examine the items in court custo-dy. GMD
No legal basis | Sun.Star
Police hold on to SUV; defense cries foul
By Gerome M. Dalipe and Kevin A. Lagunda
Saturday, April 9, 2011
ONE of the lawyers of Bella Ruby Santos yesterday asked the court to cite the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7 in contempt, for refusing to return a Mitsubishi Pajero.
Lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo and Santos went to the CIDG 7 headquarters at 10 a.m. yesterday, a day after Judge Meinrado Paredes directed the police unit to release the vehicle.
But the CIDG 7 refused to return it, saying their lawyers filed yesterday morning a motion for the partial reconsideration of Judge Paredes’s order.
“Such refusal is a plain and simple disobedience of a lawful court order, amounting to a contemptuous act punishable under Section 3, Rule 71 of the Rules of Court,” wrote Villagonzalo.
Judge Paredes, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 13, ordered the CIDG 7 last Thursday to return 10 items to Santos, including the blue Pajero.
The police, citing a witness, suspect the vehicle was used to bring the body of six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique to the edge of a cliff in Barili, where she was thrown off.
But the judge said the CIDG had no authority to seize the Pajero. “The applicant and the witness led the court to issue a search warrant for the seizure of the vehicle with plate number LHJ 382,” Paredes said.
Inspection
The actual plate number is LMJ 382.
“We see no point in returning the vehicle to the owner because it is part and parcel of the evidence,” said Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador, spokesperson of the Task Force Ellah Joy, in an interview.
Less than a day after Paredes issued his 10-page order, lawyers Inocencio dela Cerna and Glenn Condor, for the CIDG 7, filed a motion for partial reconsideration.
They asked that the police be allowed to hold on to the vehicle, while their motion is pending.
The CIDG also asked Judge Paredes to inspect the vehicle before the hearing of the motion on April 15.
The lawyers said if Paredes inspects the vehicle, he “would readily observe that the tampering is not readily noticeable and was obviously made with the intention to mislead whoever may be observing the same.”
They argued that the alleged tampering was discovered only when they implemented the search warrant on Santos’s residence in Naga last March 4.
Spoiled brat
But Atty. Villagonzalo, in the defense’s motion also filed yesterday, described the CIDG as “a spoiled brat that cannot be controlled and disciplined.”
“When the validity of the questioned warrant was upheld, the CIDG agreed but still wanted to retain a vehicle that has been declared by the court as the wrong vehicle,” said Villagonzalo.
He said Santos worries that “further tampering or sabotage” of the Pajero “will be done” by the police.
Even without the vehicle, Comendador said in a separate interview, the kidnapping with homicide case the task force filed against Santos and British national Ian Charles Griffiths remains strong, because of the witnesses’ identification of the couple.
“The more naa ang Pajero, nindot ang kaso (The Pajero makes the case stronger),” he said.
Comendador also said they are not depending on DNA test results, but these can help strengthen their case.
At 10 a.m. yesterday, Santos, her lawyers and supporters went to the CIDG 7 to try to get the Pajero back.
Positive
Senior Insp. Ricky Neron said he and Santos argued, but the latter did not get her vehicle yesterday.
“Unsa may kahadlokan nila nga di makuha nila ang vehicle? (They have nothing to be afraid of even if they don’t get the vehicle back now),” Comendador said. “We are prepared to return the vehicle.”
Comendador also said they are planning to file four additional cases against the suspects.
He said the denial of the motion to quash the search warrant is a “positive sign” for their case and that the police’s search on Santos’s house last March 4 was lawful.
He said the police would not have benefited from tampering with the Pajero’s license and were not the ones who did it.
Comendador also said they already wrote Camp Crame to ask for help in obtaining the official report from the British Government about Griffiths’ supposed arrest.
Police hold on to SUV; defense cries foul | Sun.Star
why do perverts exist
the case is still going through the legal process but no doubt this murder was done indirectly and directly by foreigners.
Last edited by malic_2; 04-11-2011 at 11:09 AM.
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