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Saturday, April 22, 2006
Where is Jojo murder gun?
Ballistic tests on bullets from SPO1 Marcial Ocampo’s .45 pistol did not match the shells found at the scene where Cebu City Bantay Dagat chief Elpidio “Jojo” dela Victoria was shot Wednesday last week.
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7, the lead agency in the task force investigating the murder, believes another firearm was used in killing dela Victoria.
Ocampo’s pistol was taken last Monday when the policeman was arrested, after he was linked to the April 12 crime.
He was no longer subjected to a paraffin test because more than 72 hours have lapsed since the shooting was carried out. The results would have been inconclusive whether Ocampo, 43, had recently fired a gun.
The raid on Ocampo’s house on Tres de Abril St. in Cebu City last Monday night yielded only a pair of brown leather Hush Puppies shoes and a camouflage bush cap but no firearm. The shoes and the cap, though, were earlier described as the gunman’s outfit.
With questions on the manner of his arrest, Ocampo’s lawyers want the murder case filed against him returned to the Talisay City Prosecutor’s Office for preliminary investigation.
Lawyers Hector and Vicente Fernandez believe the inquest proceedings conducted by the Talisay City Prosecutor’s Office was irregular.
An inquest proceeding is a fact-finding investigation made on persons taken into custody under the warrantless arrest.
But the defense argued in a five-page motion that the arrest was “illegal” since it did not fall under the instances of warrantless arrests provided for in the Revised Rules on Criminal Procedures.
The lawyers believe Ocampo was arrested on the basis that he looked like the person in the cartographic sketch of the alleged assailant.
Regional Trial Court Judge Ireneo Gako, who got the case from a special raffle last Thursday, ordered the Talisay City Prosecutor’s Office to comment on the motion to quash the information and for preliminary investigation within 10 days.
However, Gako has scheduled the arraignment in the morning of April 28.
Ocampo, who was detailed at the Minglanilla Police Station, also stated in the motion that he is ready to present witnesses to prove that he was not at the scene of the crime.
At least six witnesses have pointed to Ocampo as the one who shot dela Victoria three times at the gate of his house in Dawis, San Roque, Talisay City.
Dela Victoria, who was also the Cebu City market administrator, succumbed to gunshot wounds a day after the April 12 shooting.
Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal yesterday urged families and friends of dela Victoria to open their hearts to forgiveness for whoever shot the city official.
“We are not the owner of life. If that had happened, the Lord must have something more precious than anything else for the family,” he said over ABS-CBN TV Patrol Cebu.
He used Dela Victoria’s case in appealing for lasting peace in Cebu and for an end to vigilantism that has claimed more than 130 lives in Cebu City since Dec. 22, 2004.
Vidal offered a mass at dela Victoria’s residence in Talisay.
“Is this (dela Victoria killing) the effect of that (vigilantism)?” he said.
Meanwhile, the police will have to find the murder weapon following the results of the ballistics tests by the PNP Regional Crime Laboratory.
Conflicting claims on where Ocampo was when dela Victoria killed continue to rage.
Ocampo’s barber denied the policeman’s claim that he was having a haircut around 3 p.m. when Dela Victoria was shot.
Roldan Maraasin said it was Monday that Ocampo came to the barbershop.
Also, Police Regional Office 7 chaplain Sergio Surigao clarified yesterday that he never spotted Ocampo in the afternoon of April 12 at the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) headquarters.
Surigao said he does not know Ocampo, clarifying yesterday’s Sun.Star Cebu report that he saw the policeman at the premises of CPPO headquarters last April 12.
He confirmed that he celebrated mass and held confessions for policemen at the provincial headquarters that day, but never commented about spotting Ocampo in the area. (CPL of Superbalita/JGA/JST/AIV)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 22, 2006 issue)
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