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Friday, January 13, 2006
Arrest warrant for 4 US Marines in rape charge out (11:15 a.m.)
OLONGAPO (Updated) -- A Philippine judge on Friday issued arrest warrants for four US Marines charged with rape, putting pressure on the United States to hand them over to Philippine authorities.
The four servicemen have been held in US Embassy custody in Manila, and the US government was still considering Manila's request for their transfer, filed in November.
US officials have said they have the right to keep the Marines in their custody, according to terms of the bilateral Visiting Forces Agreement, which allows large-scale U.S. military exercises in the Philippines.
Judge Renato Dilag, of the Regional Trial Court in Olongapo city, ordered the National Bureau of Investigation, the investigative arm of the Department of Justice, to serve the arrest warrants.
However, he said in a statement: "I am of the view that we can first try to exhaust diplomatic means to get custody of the four American servicemen.
"After all, we are a civilized nation and we adhere to the tenets of international law. The strong arm of the law is not yet necessary at this point," Dilag said.
Prosecutors allege that Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith raped a 22-year-old woman Nov. 1 inside a van at Subic Bay, a former US Naval base northwest of Manila, as fellow Marines cheered him on. Smith claims he only had consensual sex.
Also charged were Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood, Lance Cpl. Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sgt. Chad Carpentier, part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Force stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
Timoteo Soriano, the Filipino driver of their rented van who was initially named as a coconspirator, was not charged after all, Dilag said. He said his inclusion in the indictment appeared to be "a mere hindsight or an afterthought" after he repudiated his first statement saying he witnessed the alleged rape. Soriano later claimed he was coerced to sign it.
Dilag acknowledged that the "matter of sovereignty and national pride has set in" in this high-profile rape case, seen as a test of the strong US-Philippine military ties.
Some Philippine lawmakers have called for abrogating the accord if the government fails to get custody of the Marines.
The US Embassy said in a statement Thursday that "the terms of the Visiting Forces Agreement allow for the accused to remain in US custody until the end of judicial proceedings."
"There will be diplomatic negotiations for the enforcement of the arrest warrants," said Gilbert Asuque, spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs.(AP)
Reposted with updates) |
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