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Monday, December 04, 2006
Makati court under tight security (1 p.m.)
MANILA - A huge contingent of policemen were deployed at the Makati Regional Trial Court while more than 500 militant groups are massing up outside to show support to a Filipina rape victim whose case will be decided Monday.
A Makati court is set to hand down a verdict Monday in a landmark rape case involving four US Marines, ending a monthslong emotional trial that has tested a US-Philippine military pact.
A 23-year-old Filipino woman, known publicly by her pseudonym "Nicole," said she was confident the court would convict Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith of sexually assaulting her while she was drunk last Nov. 1, while Staff Sgt. Chad Carpentier, Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood and Lance Cpl. Dominic Duplantis allegedly stood by.
Nicole arrived at the court from Sanctuario de San Antonio in Makati City. She was surrounded by her supporters among them was former senator Letecia Shahani, sister for former president Fidel Ramos.
Smith, 21, from St. Louis, Missouri, testified that the woman was a willing partner and the sex consensual. The other Marines backed up his testimony and denied any wrongdoing.
The incident happened inside a moving van at the former US Naval base at Subic Bay after a night of drinking with Smith, the woman said. The Marines had just finished a counterterrorism exercise.
If convicted, they could face up to 40 years in prison.
"In case of a conviction it will be, I think, a permanent blot on the record of the US servicemen in the Philippines," the woman's lawyer, Evalyn Ursua, said. "Getting a conviction is important for all of us because it will set a precedent."
An acquittal, she said, would make it difficult for other women to seek justice.
No other rape case involving US soldiers in the Philippines has reached court - not even during the decades until the US closed down its last base in the country in 1992.
The Alternative Law Groups Inc., an umbrella organization of 18 law firms in the country, warned in a statement that a "weak verdict ... will send a clear message to the international community that the Philippine government is further emasculating its own criminal justice system by tolerating U.S. military troops' irreverence to the country's sovereignty."
Smith's lawyer, Ricardo Diaz, said that in the case of a conviction the Marines would appeal and that defense lawyers will insist on U.S. custody of the servicemen while the appeal is pending.
Under the Visiting Forces Agreement, which governs the conduct of US troops in the Philippines, the Marines were placed under US custody during the court proceedings. They would have to serve their sentence in a Philippine jail, if found guilty.
Ursua said prosecutors were ready to question the agreement at the Supreme Court and seek Philippine custody while the case is under appeal.
The case has stirred emotions in this former US colony and resurrected controversies linked to the US military presence in the Philippines, which has been credited with helping Filipino troops crack down on Muslim militants in the country's restive south.
Left-wing activists have rallied against the pact, saying it favored Washington.(AP/Sunnex) |
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