Thursday, March 20, 2008
Cebu court starts hearing case v. suspect in murder or witness
A CEBU City-based court will hear the murder case against the man who allegedly killed the public school teacher who would have been the star witness in the 2002 fatal ambush of Pagadian City journalist Edgar Damalerio.
Regional Trial Court (RTC) branch 6 Judge Ester Veloso held the first of a series of hearings against Mohammad “Madix” Maulana last Tuesday and called to the stand the wife of the slain witness Edgar Amoro, Erlinda.
During the hearing, Erlinda identified Maulana who, trial court sources confirmed, has been transferred to the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center.
Damalerio was the managing editor and a columnist of the Pagadian City-based Zamboanga Scribe, a weekly publication, and a commentator of radio dxKP.
Co-host
Amoro, the would-be star witness, was his co-host.
Damalerio was shot on the night of May 13, 2002, after driving home from a press conference in the company of Amoro and Edgar Ongue, a farmer.
Trial for the murder case, which formally began in March of 2005, was held here in Cebu City upon the orders of the Supreme Court. It eventually led to the conviction of a dismissed policeman, Guillermo “Gimo” Wapile.
Used as part of the evidence of the case was a joint affidavit that Amoro executed together with Ongue who, while not conversant on the motive of the killing, was able to identity the gunman.
Malfunctioned
Ongue, during the hearings held before RTC Judge Ramon Codilla, narrated how he too had been ambushed a year before Amoro’s death. He said he survived because the unidentified gunman’s weapon malfunctioned.
Amoro was killed in February of 2005, about a month before the Cebu City trial of Wapile could begin.
According to a 2005 report of the foreign-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Amoro was shot as he left the Zamboanga del Sur National High School around 11:30 a.m. last Feb. 2, 2005.
Erlinda said the killing was triggered to prevent his testimony in the Damalerio trial.
And in the pleading she submitted to the Supreme Court to urge it to transfer the venue of their case to Cebu, she said the killing was also designed to silence every other media practitioner who has made several exposes negative to certain high officials in Pagadian City.
State Prosecutors Llena Ipong-Avila and Leo Dacera, who also heads the justice department’s Witness Protection Program, are handling the Amoro case.
Maulana, on the other hand, was arrested in Mindanao pursuant to a robbery with homicide case involving a policeman.
He faces various cases other than robbery with homicide and murder. These include two separate incidents of car theft and multiple frustrated murder. (KNR)
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