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Thursday, September 07, 2006
Seares: Jojo 'killer' and Dreyfus
By Pachico A. Seares
News Sense
What's the name Alfred Dreyfus doing in prosecution and defense pleadings in the trial of SPO1 Marcial Ocampo, accused killer of Bantay Dagat chief Jojo de la Victoria?
Dreyfus, a captain in the French general staff, was charged with selling information to the Germans in 1894. Evidence was a letter where the handwriting resembled his handwriting. Later, after a military court convicted Dreyfus, they caught the traitor but suppressed the finding.
Writer Emile Zola in a scathing attack on the military entitled “J'Accuse” ("I Accuse"), led to another trial, which exposed the letter as a forgery.
Still, Dreyfus was convicted but soon freed by presidential pardon. A civilian court finally declared him innocent and restored his military rank.
Color of what?
Defense lawyers Hector and Vicente Fernandez believe that Ocampo's case is similar: police suppress evidence that will get their client off and fabricate a "lie" that will hang him. Motive: a million-peso reward.
Prosecution lawyers Fritz Quiñanola and Rameses Villagonzalo argue that in Ocampo's case, there's none of the anti-semitism the Dreyfus case had, no "color of creed or race."
How about the color of money? The pa-and-son defense is pushing that, not the anti-Jewish thing in the Dreyfus trial.
I see lawyerly shrewdness and, ah, mischief. But does RTC Judge Ireneo Gako see any evidence of a frame-up?
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 7, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
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