Capitol: nothing to do with Briton’s arrest

Thursday, April 7, 2011

CAPITOL said it did not request authorities in the United Kingdom (UK) to arrest British national Ian Charles Griffiths.

Such a request can only be made by the National Government through the President of the Philippines to the British Government, said Capitol spokesman Rory Jon Sepulveda.

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The Sun, a tabloid in the UK, reported that Griffiths was arrested by homicide police in his property in Southampton last Friday, in relation to the kidnapping and killing of six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique.

The London Evening Standard reported yesterday that Griffiths “was arrested by Metropolitan Police Service detectives under an 1861 law that allows a Briton accused of murder or manslaughter abroad to be tried” in the UK. It said Griffiths was “freed on bail pending further inquiries.”

Insinuation

Griffiths and his Ce-buana girlfriend Bella Ruby Santos are suspects in the kidnapping and killing of Ellah Joy.

Sepulveda said Santos’s insinuation that Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia made a government-to-government request to have Griffiths arrested brings “great pride” to the governor.

"Garbo ra pud kaayo kay it is as if the governor is the President of the Republic. Di pa pud tawn presidente ang gobernador, pero pila'y pad. (It brings great pride for us because it's like saying the governor is the President of the Philippines. But you'll never know)," he told reporters.

Task Force Ellah Joy spokesperson Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador Jr. said they were unaware Griffiths was arrested in the UK. He said he only learned about it from the media.

No warrant

Comendador, also acting director of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO), said he still has to receive word from the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime (PCTC), one of the members of the task force, on Griffiths’s UK arrest.

But there is no warrant for Griffiths’s arrest yet and a case against him and Santos has yet to be filed in court.

The task force filed a complaint of kidnapping with homicide against the Briton and his Filipina girlfriend with the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, which is still investigating the case to determine if there is probable cause for the filing of charges in court.

Santos had denied any involvement in the crime. Griffiths left Cebu on Feb. 27 and never came back, based on immigration records.

Crame

Comendador said the task force submitted reports to their higher headquarters in Camp Crame, which has links with international law enforcement agencies.

If Griffiths’s arrest was true, Comendador said, it will help the local police in tracing the whereabouts of the suspect in the UK. But he declined to comment how it would affect the case against the Briton.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI), on the other hand, has not received a hold departure order on either Santos or Griffiths.

Alien Control Officer Casimiro Madarang III said his office is also unaware that Griffiths had been arrested in London.

Investigators

Meanwhile, the National Police Commission (Napolcom) 7 urged the CPPO to identify the private investigators allegedly hired by Santos to harass witnesses in Minglanilla and file charges against them.

The Napolcom was alarmed by reports that private investigators used the names of the Napolcom and the Commission on Human Rights to harass witnesses in the case.

Lawyer Zandro Ronnie Oriol, Napolcom spokesperson, said upon verification at the commission’s central office and in the regional office, “the alleged private investigators who introduced themselves as Napolcom personnel are not, in any capacity, connected with the Napolcom.”

“The Napolcom fully supports the PNP in seeking justice for the Pique family,” Oriol said.

Comendador, in a separate interview, said two of the three private investigators have been identified.

He said the CPPO is studying the possibility of filing charges of usurpation of authority against these private investigators.

According to the recent information that reached Comendador, the private investigators, who are reportedly former law enforcers, have gone back to Luzon last Tuesday night.