Lawyer protests as whereabouts of arrested NPA suspect unknown

Jaime Padilla, an alleged leader of the New People’s Army, poses for a mugshot after he was arrested for multiple murder in San Juan City on Monday, November 25, 2019. Photo from NCRPO

SAN PEDRO CITY—The lawyer of the man arrested on suspicion of being a rebel spokesperson, Jaime Padilla, protested what she said was her client’s transfer to an undisclosed location without the knowledge of his legal counsel or family.

Calling out police “irregularity,” lawyer Kristina Conti said Padilla “has been missing” since noon of Wednesday, Nov. 27.

“We will hold the police and the Duterte government accountable for whatever may happen to him,” Conti said in a phone interview Wednesday evening.

Padilla, 72, was suffering from hypertension and a heart disease, the reason he sought admission at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City, Metro Manila.

On Monday, Nov. 25, the San Juan City police and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) arrested Padilla based on a warrant issued by a court in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro.

Padilla was charged with four counts of murder. His three other companions in the hospital were also arrested and were charged with obstruction of justice and for being accessories to the crime.

Conti said Padilla was initially held at the CIDG holding facility. He was last seen by a volunteer physician, on Tuesday, Nov. 26, who said that Padilla’s blood pressure was “unstable” at 150/110.

Conti said her client was really “frail.”

“He was accused of being a member of the so-called ‘enemies of the state,’ and now he’s being surrounded by the people who want him dead. That’s what’s scary,” she said. Maricar Cinco

Edited by TSB