Thursday, October 09, 2008 Suspects in Wewe Lao’s murder ask court: Drop 5-year-old case
OVER five years after Bureau of Customs deputy collector Eduardo “Wewe” Lao was ambushed along Osmeña Blvd., an incident that also killed a customs examiner, the case against two men remains pending.
Accused Rustico Fernandes and Juan Jesus Vergel de Dios have instead asked for the court’s permission to submit a pleading called a demurrer to evidence, on the belief that the evidence so far introduced by the prosecution is weak.
A demurrer to evidence asks the court to review the prosecution’s case after it has rested and, if warranted, for the court to immediately dismiss the entire case.
Judge Douglas Marigomen, presiding over the fifth branch of the Regional Trial Court in Cebu City, gave the defense permission in a single-page order dated Sept. 19, but received by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 only last Monday.
Marigomen gave the defense lawyers 15 days to submit the demurrer and for Assistant City Prosecutor Eulogio Borres Jr., the government prosecutor assigned to the
case, to submit his comment within 10 days.
‘Hao siao’
It was the NBI that investigated the murder case and filed the complaint that resulted in the indictment of Fernandes and de Dios. Both were “hao siao” or non-government employees at the Bureau of Customs.
They drew their pay from customs officials who sent them out on errands, work-related or otherwise.
Four witnesses were presented in court, including a student of the Cebu Normal University who said she saw the ambush as it took place right outside the school’s campus and a laundrywoman who was in a jeepney right behind Lao’s vehicle when the shooting began.
The July 24, 2003 shooting killed Lao and customs examiner Bennett Soreño, who hitched a ride with him that day. Another casualty was an Abellana National High School student whom a stray bullet hit in the head.
Timing
Lao’s driver, Samuel Dejan, was also injured as a result of the shooting.
During the trial, a prosecution witness whose name was withheld for her safety recalled that she had just picked up her eight-year-old girl from school and was in a Guadalupe-bound jeepney when it stopped for a red light on Osmeña Blvd. past 5 p.m. last July 24, 2003.
The jeepney stopped behind Lao’s blue Isuzu Trooper.
Seconds later, the witness said, she saw a man going to the blue vehicle, carrying something that he covered with a towel. She identified him in court as de Dios.
She said she was face-to-face with the suspect who walked past where she sat and even smiled at her when their eyes met.
To her horror, the man, without any hesitation, strafed the right front side of the blue vehicle. That forced her, five other passengers and the driver to scamper away.
Out of fear, the witness said she accidentally left behind her daughter, an elementary student, who got stomped when all the other passengers rushed to get out of the vehicle.
Rushing back to the jeepney to get her daughter, the witness said she still could hear rapid gunfire. (KNR)
