Napolcom asked to speed up case vs cop dropped in Ampatuan massacre case

MANILA, Philippines — This police rookie is no longer an accused in the Maguindanao massacre but still awaits his fate in the hands of a police body.

The lawyer of Police Officer 1 Johann Draper has urged the National Police Commission to speed up its resolution of his client’s case, especially that a Quezon City court has removed the policeman from the charge sheet more than two years ago.

Fernando Peña decried the Napolcom’s alleged inaction of a motion he filed two years ago asking the agency to resolve Draper’s case.

In a recent interview with reporters, he pointed out that in July 2010, his client was dropped from the list of then 197 accused in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.

Although released from detention, the young police officer was still on floating status and virtually jobless despite having no criminal case against him.

Draper has gone home to his family in Mindanao as he waits for the resolution of the administrative case.

“I believe that since the criminal aspect was dismissed already by the court, then the administrative aspect should be dismissed as well,” Peña maintained.

As he was initially indicted as one of the accused in the Maguindanao massacre, Draper was slapped with a gross misconduct case before the Napolcom, an agency handling administrative charges against police officers.

But on July 16, 2010, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 resolved Draper’s appeal for a review in his favor, making him the only accused so far to have succeeded in having the 57 murder cases against him dismissed.

The court dismissed the charges against the policeman, citing lack of probable cause to indict him.

Pena said Draper was a bodyguard of a son of Andal Ampatuan Jr., the primary suspect in the landmark case.

Records showed that barely after a month after the criminal charges were dismissed, Peña asked the Napolcom to resolve the administrative cases against Draper, citing the court’s order in favor of his client.

Two years later, the police agency has “not lifted any finger to take action” on Peña’s motion to resolve Draper’s case.

Peña said he will file another motion to resolve this “as a show of disgust” on the Napolcom’s failure to resolve the case “with dispatch despite dismissal of the criminal aspect of the case.”

The lawyer also expressed hope that Draper will be able to get his backpay once he was reinstated.

In asking the Quezon City court to junk the charges, the policeman through Peña argued that except for his name mentioned in submitted documents, no witnesses mentioned his actual participation or presence in relation to the 2009 carnage.

The court, in granting Draper’s motion for judicial determination of probable case, said “the mere association of Draper with one of the accused in these cases will not suffice to indict him.”

Andal Ampatuan Jr. and members of his family lead the now 195 accused charged for the deaths of 57 people in Maguindanao province on Nov. 23, 2009.

In February this year, accused PO2 Hernanie Decipulo died after reportedly jumping off the fourth floor of a building in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City where he was detained.