Couple accused of abusing maid can’t leave PH

A Quezon City court has issued a hold departure order (HDO) against a couple charged with maltreating their former housemaid until she went blind.

Judge Germano Francisco Legaspi of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 77 granted last week the petition filed by the prosecution which sought the issuance of an HDO to prevent Reynold and Analiza Marzan from leaving the country.

He also directed his staff to ensure that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Bureau of Immigration would be furnished copies of his order.

The Marzans are charged with serious illegal detention for conspiring to lock up their former maid, Bonita Baran, inside their house in Quezon City from June 2009 until May 2010.

Baran lodged the complaint against the couple with the help of the Public Attorney’s Office. She said that she was hired in 2007 and that Annaliza began maltreating her in April 2008.

The abuses ranged from choking her, burning her nose with a hot iron and pouring cold water or bleach on her burns and wounds.

In addition, Annaliza repeatedly punched Baran’s eyes until her sense of sight was affected. They finally let her go home in May after she became almost blind in both eyes.

In last week’s hearing, the court junked the Marzans’ motion for a reinvestigation, judicial determination of probable cause and the recall of the arrest warrants issued against them.

This was after the court learned that the Quezon City Prosecutors’ Office had already denied the couple’s motion to reopen the case.

Earlier, Legaspi ordered the Marzans’ arrest with no bail.

The couple were absent during the hearing but in an interview with reporters, their lawyer Jesus Fernandez said that he would advise his clients “to face the music and the charges [against them.]”

In addition to the charge of serious illegal detention, Analiza was also slapped with two counts of attempted homicide and seven counts of serious physical injuries.

However, the complaint against Reynold as an accessory to serious physical injuries and attempted murder were dismissed due to lack of evidence.