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Friday, July 07, 2006
'Nicole' pinpoints 'rapist' during testimony
MANILA -- A Filipino woman identified US Marine Daniel Smith as the one who allegedly raped her on the night of November 1 as she tearfully testified Thursday during an emotional six-week-old trial.
"I remember someone on top of me while I was lying down. I felt his weight and he is kissing me," the complainant said and broke down in tears, prompting the court to suspend her testimony and adjourn until Friday.
The 22-year-old woman, identified in court by the pseudonym "Nicole," alleged she was attacked in a van on November 1 by Smith as Lance Corporal Keith Silkwood, Lance Corporal Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier cheered him on.
The Marines have refused to answer the rape charges, punishable by up to 40 years in prison, prompting the judge to enter an innocent plea for them. Defense lawyers insist Smith had consensual sex with the woman.
Smith earlier admitted to US Naval Investigative Service (NCIS) investigators that he had sex with "Nicole" although he said it was consensual, a point the prosecution contested saying the complainant was too drunk at the time to give her consent.
In nearly four hours of testimony at the sala of Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 139 Judge Benjamin Pozon, "Nicole" also pointed to Smith as the one she danced with earlier in the night at the Neptune Bar inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.
She said he turned her around every time she tried to get a look at him when they were dancing.
Asked how she ended up dancing with the accused, Nicole told the court she already had several drinks when Smith grabbed her by the wrist to dance.
Scared because she didn't know who Smith was, she turned to US Navy Petty Officer 2 Christopher Mills, a family friend from Zamboanga, who said it was okay to dance with the Marine while telling Smith, "Just take care of her."
She continued to drinking and then testified that she was forced out of the bar.
"The next thing I remember, someone was lying on top of me," she said. "Someone was kissing me... It was Smith." She began crying, prompting the judge to adjourn the hearing.
On how she came to be in Subic, Nicole said she, Mills, and her stepsister Annaliza Franco and were on vacation there and was barhopping that night.
She said they became friends with Mills in July 2005 when the US Navy transport ship, the US Stockholm, docked at Zamboanga's pier where they unloaded supplies for US forces who were conducting anti-terror training exercises with Filipino soldiers.
She said that they treated Mills and every US soldier like family so they would not feel homesick while they were in Zamboanga City. "We treated them well, we took good care of them. My mother would even prepare lunch for them and they in return trusted us, they even let us withdraw money for them outside the camp," she told the court of her family's relationship with US soldiers.
Nicole also said that even inside the bar on November 1 surrounded by US servicemen and women, she felt safe because she recognized some of them.
Before the alleged rape, Nicole said they visited tourist spots and went barhopping at nighttime and even played in the casino at the hotel where Mills taught them how to play blackjack and roulette.
The defense said Nicole was selective in her testimony although they conceded that it hemmed close to the affidavit she submitted to investigators at the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority Law Enforcement Division on the incident.
Outside the court, some 60 women protested, using sticks to beat posters of the four defendants stamped with "Jail the yankees."
During the fast-track proceedings to beat a one-year deadline for the case, several witnesses have testified the woman was seen carried out of a bar on Smith's back into a van. Other witnesses said they later saw the Marines take the half-naked woman out of the van and leave her on a sidewalk.
Dr. Rolando Ortiz II of the James Gordon Memorial Hospital in Olongapo City, west of Manila, earlier testified that the accuser suffered bruises on her arms, legs, and genital area that were consistent with a sexual assault.
Carpentier, who together with the other Marines has been confined to the US Embassy in Manila, told a Philippine TV station in a rare interview that "Nicole" was being manipulated to accuse the servicemen.
"She's a victim but not a victim of us, she's a victim of some of the people surrounding her," he told GMA television, without elaborating.
"We're human. We're not, you know, the monsters that we're made out to be," he said.
The embassy, which has custody of the men under a treaty with the Philippine government, hasn't released their ages or hometowns. Under the treaty, the proceedings must conclude in one year.
The case sparked anti-American protests in the former US colony and is seen as a black mark on exercises credited with helping weaken al-Qaida-linked militants in the country's restive south. The men were part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Force stationed in Okinawa, Japan. (AP/AH/Sunnex)
(July 7, 2006 issue)
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