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Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Pa meted death for raping child
Ruling that the defense he put up was “simply pathetic,” the Regional Trial Court (RTC) yesterday sent a man to his death for the incestuous rape of his daughter.
In a four-page decision promulgated yesterday, Judge Olegario Sarmiento Jr. sentenced Danny (real name withheld to protect the victim) to die by lethal injection.
“The special aggravating circumstances of minority and blood relationship are alleged in the information and duly proved by the evidence. The court is constrained to sentence the accused to death,” Sarmiento wrote.
Sarmiento is leaving it up to the appellate court or the High Tribunal to overturn or modify his ruling, as they see fit.
But even if the High Tribunal upholds the sentence though, it is highly unlikely for Danny to die by the State’s hands, as President Arroyo earlier issued a policy statement against executions.
The Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor resolved to charge Danny for the Feb. 3, 2002 rape of his daughter, then 15.
She said she noticed that she was naked, her father on top of her. She noticed that her leg had been spread apart and tied in place, her arms tied behind her back.
Danny, at the witness stand, denied the charge. He accused his estranged wife of instigating the filing of the charge, adding that the victim couldn’t have done so herself because she wasn’t at all that smart.
He said his wife was mad at him for obtaining a loan without asking her permission.
When he gave her part of the proceeds of the loan, she left with all six children to Toledo City and only the victim was persuaded to come back to their old home in Pardo.
“This court believes in the allegation of the victim,” Sarmiento ruled, adding that “the insinuation of accused that his daughter was used by his wife does not deserve any consideration.”
“Will a wife use her daughter to file this serious charge of rape and in the process require her to tell the sexual assault on her in a public trial and be unmindful of the shame it will bring to the family? Such reasoning is simply pathetic, put astride with the prayer to have him hanged,” the court said. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 6, 2006 issue)
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