Tuesday, April 01, 2008
'Gunman' gets 8 to 12 years
THE Regional Trial Court convicted the man accused of trying to kill broadcaster Cirse “Choy” Torralba and sentenced him to eight to 12 years in prison for frustrated murder.
RTC Judge Estela Alma Singco, in a 29-page ruling dated Feb. 26 but read in court yesterday, also ordered John Lloyd Ortiz to pay P161,214.47 as actual damages.
“Mr. Injustice is killed, super-killed. Kay tarong ang huwes ug husto ang hukom,” Torralba told reporters after the announcement of the decision.
But Ortiz was not taken into custody after the promulgation held at around 8:30 in the morning, as Singco allowed the bail bond he posted after he was charged sometime in June of 2004 to stand.
This after his lawyer, Rolando Quimbo, said he is preparing a motion for reconsideration.
The court’s move didn’t sit well with Torralba, who argued that Ortiz, after the conviction, is now a flight risk.
“I will ask my lawyer to oppose it. He should be detained,” Torralba said in an interview after the proceedings.
Quimbo, in announcing the filing of a motion for reconsideration, noted how Torralba claimed to have shot and hit the shooter and yet Ortiz didn’t even have a scratch in him.
But Torralba said he never told the court he actually hit Ortiz. What he said was that he merely fired back.
Torralba was shot at around 1:45 p.m. last June 8, 2004 outside the Angel Radio studio, where he had a weekday noon-time program. The radio station is located along Juana Osmeña St.
Identification
Torralba had just finished lunch and had entered his vehicle when a man he later identified as Ortiz opened fire at his vehicle. Torralba was hit three times.
He said he would have been shot fatally had he not been able to return fire using his .38 cal. five-shot Smith & Wesson revolver.
During the trial, Torralba said he had a clear view of the shooter from inside the vehicle while the latter was maneuvering towards the right side of the car.
He told the court that while he saw the gunman’s face, he didn’t yet know him to be Ortiz.
When the police questioned him at his hospital bed, Torralba told them about the boyfriend of one of his staff members, Yvonne Ygbuhay, who was reportedly angry at him for having gotten close to her.
The police later showed Torralba the photo of Ygbuhay’s boyfriend, Ortiz. The broadcaster identified him as the gunman.
Private prosecutor Adelino Sitoy presented Torralba’s driver, Randy Libradilla, who also identified Ortiz in court.
The other prosecution witnesses included the then chief of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau, Sr. Supt. Pablo Labra, who investigated the shooting.
It was Labra’s unit that obtained a photograph of Ortiz from Ygbuhay’s friend.
Alibi
The defense of Ortiz’s lawyer centered on mistaken identity: that Ortiz was not even in the area when the shooting happened.
Ortiz said he was at the mall at the time and date of the shooting. He arrived at around 1:15, half an hour before the incident, and played at a computer arcade.
Also, his lawyer argued that Torralba and his corroborating witness gave police a physical description that didn’t fit how Ortiz looked.
At the time of the shooting, around 1:45 p.m., Ortiz recalled being in one of the mall’s watch shops looking at a new Timex, then went to a coffee shop to meet with his friend, a Sherwin Ong.
Ong was presented in court and testified that he and Ortiz remained in the area until close to 3 p.m., as hey had to run an errand for Ong’s sister.
The defense also presented Bernard Francis Casugod, who said he was at room 216 of the Vacation Hotel on the day of the incident waiting for the photographer he hired to shoot his wedding.
He said he saw the incident and noticed two shooters, both having oriental features.
One was 5-foot-eight-inches in height, carried a gun in his right hand, and had long hair. The other was even taller but older.
Ortiz is left-handed and wears his hair short.
The two gunmen theory coincided with a finding of the PNP Crime Laboratory that one of the shells recovered from the crime scene did not come from the same gun as the other shells.
But the prosecution presented in court Alma Garcia, front desk clerk on duty at the Vacation Hotel at the time of the shooting, who said no Casugod checked in at the hotel that day.
She added that room 216 that Casugod claimed to have occupied was empty.
Garcia said she ran to the room after hearing gun shots, as it offers a view of the Angel Radio studio. Nobody was occupying the room at that time.
Ruling
“After a thorough albeit impartial evaluation and analysis of the parties’ conflicting versions, the court is convinced the accused shot Torralba on June 8, 2004, at about 1:45 in the afternoon,” Singco ruled.
“Indeed, although said witnesses were subjected to rigorous cross-examination, they neither faltered in their positive identification of accused nor gave any statements materially inconsistent with their entire testimonies,” she added.
She also noted the traces of gun powder nitrates found on Ortiz’s hands.
While the defense argued that Ortiz smoked cigarettes, a PNP crime laboratory witness said the nitrates were from firing a gun and not the type one gets from smoking. (KNR)
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