Thursday, August 12, 2004 Marig main office wants its 4 Cebu cops in court
THE Maritime Group (Marig) prefers that the court will be the one to resolve the case of four officers accused of pocketing part of the shabu taken from suspected drug trafficker Willy Solon.
Marig Deputy Director Alfredo Alix said the court is the proper venue for the allegation Solon made against the four policemen who arrested him.
But the House committee on dangerous drugs, of which Cebu City Rep. Antonio Cuenco is vice chairman, is still bent on conducting an inquiry even without Solon’s affidavit.
The affidavit would have formalized Solon’s allegation that Senior Insp. Roger Mangaoan, PO3 Loreto Banilad, PO2 Henry Deluna and PO1 Napoleon Taneo of Marig 7 kept two out of the four kilos of shabu seized from his bag at Pier 5, Cebu City last July 28.
Solon was arrested when he disembarked from a Sulpicio Lines passenger ship from Manila.
“Let the court resolve the issue,” said Marig central office on the allegation.
In court, Solon will have to show proof while the Marig policemen will be allowed to defend themselves.
“It’s not right that we allow someone to make accusations without providing evidence,” Alix said in an interview yesterday.
Solon had earlier expressed willingness to become state witness against his arresting officers.
Solon has reportedly agreed to undergo a lie detector test and execute an affidavit.
Unfair
The lawyers of the Marig policemen, on the other hand, have refused to let their client undergo a lie detector test unless Solon executes an affidavit and undergoes a polygraph test.
“It is unfair,” Alix said of Solon’s accusation. “Akala namin hero kami because we made the arrest, but now we are made to appear the culprits.”
He said the four Marig policemen should be allowed to defend themselves in court.
“Bigyan naman ng chance yung tao namin (Give our people a chance),” he added.
Congressman Cuenco, meanwhile, said an inquiry may be done by the end of this month or early next month in Cebu City.
Liberty
“We hope to get all clarifications on all these allegations in the investigation,” he said yesterday.
He said the investigation will focus on the alleged missing two kilos of shabu and the purported effort of the four policemen to extort from Solon P500,000 cash in exchange for his liberty.
Cuenco learned that the policemen allegedly asked Solon to produce P500,000 for his release.
This way, the Maritime policemen would just report that they only confiscated the evidence while Solon managed to elude arrest.
“These are serious allegations that the committee would like to investigate,” Cuenco said. LAP/JST
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