17 more cops charged for ‘Bloody Sunday’ slays

FILE PHOTO: Imelda Evangelista, 55, points to the spot where her son, Ariel Evangelista, and his wife, Chai Lemita-Evangelista, were shot dead by police officers in Barangay Calayo, Nasugbu, Batangas. The Evangelista couple was among the nine activists killed in simultaneous police-military raids in the Southern Luzon region on Sunday, March 7, 2021. INQUIRER/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday said murder charges were filed against 17 police officers for the deaths of a political activist and his wife during the infamous “Bloody Sunday” incident in Calabarzon region last year.

The DOJ said the police officers, assigned to the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, carried out the dawn raid that led to the killing of Ariel Evangelista and his wife, Anna Marie, inside their home in Nasugbu, Batangas, on March 7, 2021.

The DOJ, however, did not release the names of those who were included as respondents in the criminal complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation.

“The names of the respondents should be available once the Office of the Prosecutor General issues the corresponding subpoenas directing them to appear and answer the complaint against them,” Justice Undersecretary Adrian Sugay told reporters.

The Evangelistas were among the nine activists who were killed during simultaneous raids conducted by the military and the police.

The law enforcers had earlier claimed that the victims were communist rebels who resisted arrest and opened fire at them, similar to the narrative that security forces usually claim amid the killings of thousands of drug suspects under the Duterte administration.