THE accused Australian pedophile Peter Gerard Scully appeared before the trial court anew on Tuesday, November 22, to face six qualified trafficking and rape by sexual assault charges filed against him at the Regional Trial Court Branch 37.
Scully's legal counsel cross-examined the social worker witness presented by the prosecution in the previous hearings.
"Humana ang pag cross-examine nato sa social worker and they will wait for prosecution to present their next witnesses (The cross-examination on the social worker is done)," said Adonis Gumahad, one of Scully’s defense counsels.
Gumahad said Scully is also supposed to face the court for the arraignment of the additional 18 charges filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Regional Prosecutor's Office has recently filed 69 other charges handled by the DOJ in the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Malaybalay and Surigao.
Gumahad said out of 69, 20 cases were raffled under Branch 37.
The 20 cases included human trafficking, violation of child pornography and photo and video voyeurism.
"Supposed to be, arraignment to ganina sa other cases. Sa 69 cases handled by the DOJ 20 ang na-raffle sa branch 37 pero 18 lang ang involved si Scully and duha kay sa other accused (It was supposed to be the arraignment of the other cases. Of the 69 cases handled by DOJ, 20 have been raffled to Branch 37 with 18 involving Scully and two are for the other accused)," Gumahad said.
However, the defense counsel filed their motion for bill of particulars last Thursday, November 17, to suspend the proceedings.
Gumahad said they wanted detailed information of the complaints which for them were broad and general.
"Nag-file mi og motion for bill of particulars kay daghan pa mi gusto ma-define sa information nga dili pa klaro. Sa among part we will avail what is legally available nga remedy sa client. We hope nga ma-grant ang among motion para ma-detailed ang information (We filed a motion for bill of particulars kay we want to define more on ambiguous information. In our part, we will avail what is legally available remedy for the client. We hope our motionwill be granted so information can be detailed)," Gumahad said.
Gumahad said the prosecution will be made to file their comment within 15 days.
"We are waiting for other cases nga ma-consolidate sa branch 37 kay naa pa sa Malaybalay and Surigao (We are waiting for other cases to be consolidated in branch 37 because it’s still in Malaybalay and Surigao," Gumahad said.