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Wednesday, April 19, 2006
More witnesses, evidence v. killer cop
CEBU CITY -- Two more witnesses have identified Senior Police Officer 1 Marcial Ocampo as the man who shot and killed Elpidio "Jojo" dela Victoria outside his house in Talisay City last Wednesday.
However, the police need to present Ocampo in court Wednesday and explain why he should not be released, after his wife questioned the manner of his arrest.
As of Tuesday, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the P200,000 reward that he promised for the suspect's identification "will probably go" to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7, which is leading the investigation.
But the mayor also said he will evaluate the situation.
Aside from the testimonies of six witnesses so far, the police also have other evidence, said Senior Superintendent Jose Jorge Corpuz, CIDG 7 regional officer.
Corpuz, in a press conference at the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Tuesday morning, showed a pair of brown leather Hush Puppies shoes and a camouflage bush cap, which the earlier testimonies described as the gunman's outfit.
These were recovered from Ocampo's house on Tres de Abril Street, Cebu City Monday night, after the police served a search warrant against him.
Similarity
The .45 pistol they recovered from him when he was picked up for questioning was submitted to the Regional Crime Laboratory for a ballistics examination.
PRO 7 Director Eduardo Gador pointed out that the sketch made of the gunman bore very similar features with Ocampo.
The witnesses were unanimous in saying they could not be mistaken and were sure that it was Ocampo who killed dela Victoria, who was Cebu City's market administrator and concurrent director of the Bantay Dagat Commission.
Gador said it was because of the cooperation of the witnesses that the gunman was easily found.
He added Osmeña's offer of a reward and the media's publication of the sketch were helpful to the solution of the case.
Osmeña, however, said he was not interested in rewarding witnesses, as doing so might just "destroy the prosecution" by attracting those more interested in the money than in having justice served.
Osmeña has also offered a reward of P1 million for the capture of whoever masterminded de la Victoria's murder.
Challenge
Yet even as they search for the mastermind and other accomplices, the police will have to face a legal challenge.
Executive Judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. wants the police to present Ocampo in a hearing today.
This after Ocampo's wife, Grace, filed Tuesday a petition for habeas corpus that narrated how the CIDG detained her husband, after arresting him without a warrant five days after dela Victoria's death.
The CIDG, Grace said, first made her husband report to their headquarters on the pretext of "a very important matter" and, once there, immediately placed him under custody.
"Petitioner alleges that the arrest and detention of her husband has no legal and factual basis because of the absence of a warrant for his arrest," said Dumdum.
"Finding the petition to be sufficient both in form and substance, the court hereby gives the instant petition due course," he added.
The writ was served on CIDG 7's Corpus and Rex Derilo, the operations chief, late Tuesday afternoon.
Counterpoint
The hearing requires the CIDG to show cause why Ocampo should not be released.
Four witnesses identified Ocampo at the CIDG headquarters Monday afternoon.
But in an interview, lawyer Vicente Fernandez II, Ocampo's counsel, said they intend to file criminal complaints against the CIDG for unlawful arrest.
"They took custody of my client through a warrantless arrest. But there was no hot pursuit. How can a warrantless arrest be justified?" Fernandez asked.
And if the CIDG is unable to file a formal complaint against Ocampo before the lapse of 36 hours from his arrest Monday afternoon, Fernandez said they would also go after Corpus and Derilo for arbitrary detention.
Fernandez downplayed the identification made by the four witnesses against his client, adding that the CIDG committed lapses in the way they conducted their interrogation and contaminated their witnesses.
Alibi
Grace, in a separate interview, clarified that her husband was not picked up by the CIDG.
She said her husband received a call from Derilo, who went to the Minglanilla Philippine National Police station last Monday and, not finding him there, called him up at home.
Her husband agreed to come with Derilo to the CIDG. He'd suspected that he'd be called in for questioning, after he heard from other people that his face resembled the sketch of the killer.
Grace revealed that Ocampo and Derilo, who arrived with one other CIDG policeman, met at a gasoline station along Natalio Bacalso Avenue and traveled in the same car to the CIDG headquarters in Camp Sotero Cabahug. Lugging along her baby, she went with them.
Upon their arrival, she said, they were immediately ushered into Derilo's office. She narrated that Corpus arrived and immediately demanded that her husband explain himself.
She said Ocampo told them that he was somewhere else when dela Victoria was attacked, but this was brushed aside.
"Even before the alibi of petitioner's husband could be verified, respondent Rex Derilo ordered him to make petitioner leave the premises of CIDG 7 and warned him not to call the attention of the media about his arrest, which drove a chill down the spine of petitioner," Fernandez wrote in the petition.
Mastermind
"Respondents would not do that if they are not up to something fishy and illegal, as the police investigators usually do when they are in a hurry to `solve' a case as they salivate over the bounty of one million pesos as promised by the Honorable Mayor Tomas Osmeña," the petition added.
For his part, Gador said Ocampo's arrest did not mean they considered the case solved because they still needed to establish a motive and to find the mastermind.
Corpuz said that as soon as the cartographic sketch was done, they already came up with a list of possible suspects, including Ocampo.
The badge and handcuffs he was bringing at the time reportedly gave him away.
Asked if Ocampo could issue a statement to the media, Gador declined, saying the investigation was ongoing.
Ocampo, though, denied the allegations in an ambush interview.
For his part, Cebu Provincial Police Office director Vicente Loot does not believe Minglanilla Police Chief Virgilio Apurado can be held liable for Ocampo's involvement in the crime.
Loot pointed out that Ocampo was on leave at the time of the incident. (MEA/KNR/With RHM/Sun.Star Cebu)
(April 19, 2006 issue)
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