Ramirez has yet to receive order to submit affidavit
-A A +ASaturday, January 29, 2011
MEDELLIN Mayor Ricardo Ramirez has yet to receive the order that requires him to answer the homicide charge the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)
lodged against him for the death of his bodyguard.
He, however, admitted he has obtained the services of two lawyers to prepare his counter-affidavit and submit it to the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor.
“We have not done that yet because we have not received the order,” he told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday.
Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Joe Noel Lawas, in an order issued Thursday last week, directed Ramirez to submit his counter-affidavit to the complaint.
The order gave Ramirez and his lawyers 10 days upon receipt to comply, lest the office be forced to resolve the complaint based on the evidences and statements the police and their witnesses submitted.
The Office of the Provincial Prosecutor, however, addressed the order to the town police. The local police was tasked to serve it on Ramirez for compliance.
Lawas is conducting the preliminary investigation on the complaint.
It accused Ramirez of having a hand in the death of Edelberto “Delbi” Abao, 57, and resident of Barangay Caputatan Sur, Medellin, last Dec. 27.
Wound
Abao, a casual employee of the Medellin Municipal Government, suffered a gunshot wound in the right leg and died of cardiac arrest following surgery at the Severo Verallo Memorial Hospital in Bogo City.
Attached to the CIDG complaint was the affidavit of Abao’s son, Edelito, saying his father told him it was Ramirez who shot him accidentally.
This is an allegation Ramirez denied in previous interviews.
He said the witnesses were connected with the neighboring Bogo City.
Ramirez and Bogo City Mayor Celestino “Junie” Martinez Jr., though relatives, are at odds politically. Ramirez believes the witnesses from Bogo have been influenced.
“I hope that the witnesses who were coached to lie will realize the gravity of what they’ve done,” he had said. “Definitely, I am going to file charges against them for providing false testimony.”
He instead lodged a separate complaint against CIDG policeman who led the investigation, PO3 Arnold Bocayong.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 29, 2011.
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