Police file murder rap vs self-confessed killer of Silawan

PNP chief Oscar Albayalde presents a 43-year-old man (in orange shirt) who gave himself up and claimed that he murdered Cebu teenager Christine Silawan. SCREENGRAB FROM CEBU DAILY NEWS VIDEO

CEBU CITY — The police filed on Tuesday a murder complaint against the self-confessed killer of 16-year-old Christine Silawan.

The complaint against Renato Llenes was filed at the prosecutor’s office in Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan Island, Cebu.

“Yes. We filed it at the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office (on Tuesday),” said Police Col. Limuel Obon, Lapu-Lapu City Police Office director.

This meant that there were two separate murder complaints about the killing of Silawan that were pending at the prosecutor’s office.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) earlier filed murder complaint against Silawan’s ex-boyfriend who was allegedly last seen with the girl on the night she was killed on March 9.

The 18-year-old teenager was arrested by the NBI in his home in Lapu-Lapu City, five days after the body of Silawan was found on a vacant lot in Barangay Bangkal, Lapu-Lapu.

Half of her face and the organs in the neck area were removed. Her body bore 30 stab wounds.

The boy was later ordered released by the prosecutor’s office on the ground that the arrest was not covered by warrantless arrest.

But he was placed under the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development to ensure his safety after President Duterte ordered the boy’s arrest upon learning that he had been released.

Police Brig. General Debold Sinas, police director for Central Visayas, said it would be up to the prosecutor’s office to decide what to do with the complaints.

While Silawan’s parents acted as the complainant in the teenager’s murder complaint, the police served as a complainant in the murder case against Llenes who owned up the crime.

In an earlier interview, the police claimed that the parents did not sign the affidavit as complainants in the extrajudicial confession of Llenes because they believed that the crime was committed by their daughter’s ex-boyfriend.

Sinas, however, maintained that they had strong evidence against Llenes despite the lack of support of the victim’s family.