Ninoy slay case closed, high court decides

THE SUPREME Court yesterday denied with finality the petition to hold a new trial for the 16 soldiers convicted for the double murder of opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. and Rolando Galman.

The Public Attorney’s Office had filed the motion for reconsideration to have the case reopened in the light of new evidence on behalf of the 16 soldiers who are serving life terms for the double murder.

The SC said it was denying “with finality for lack of merit” the PAO’s motion for the petitioners.

The high court in effect affirmed its earlier ruling that the “newly discovered evidence” was “unfounded and purely speculative.”

In a resolution affirmed by 14 of 15 justices of the high tribunal, the SC said the petitioners failed to present “concrete facts to support their crass claim.”

Unmoved

“Finally, we are not moved by the petitioners’ assertion that the forensic evidence may have been manipulated and misinterpreted during the trial of the case,” said the 25-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Reynato Puno.

The 16, who were convicted and sentenced to double-life imprisonment for the Aug. 21, 1983 killing of Aquino and Galman, late last year asked PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta to have their case reviewed by the “Independent Forensic Group of the University of the Philippines.”

After the UP forensics came up with a new finding, they then filed a petition for a new and third trial where the new evidence could be presented.

According to the petitioners, they obtained new evidence “not available” during the trial, proving that there were “false forensic claims that led to the unjust conviction.”

They said that it was not possible for Constable Rogelio Moreno to have fired at Aquino while he was going down the tarmac.

‘Sham’ trial

The first Sandiganbayan trial of 1985, which concluded that it was Galman who had shot Aquino and acquitted the then Armed Forces Chief Fabian Ver and 25 others, was declared a “sham.”

A second Sandiganbayan trial in 1990 found the 16 accused guilty. It identified the gunman who shot Aquino as Moreno, one of three soldiers who boarded the plane and took Aquino seconds before he was shot.

The court also affirmed the findings of the Agrava Fact-finding Board that there had been a military conspiracy to kill Aquino, a former senator who was returning from the US to challenge the rule of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The second Sandiganbayan trial was unable to determine who was behind the conspiracy to kill the former senator. The justices noted that the broader question of who ordered the killing of Aquino could not be answered.

Custodio

Convicted of the crime were Brig. Gen. Luther Custodio, Capt. Romeo Bautista, 2nd Lt. Jesus Castro, and Seargents Claro L. Lat, Arnulfo de Mesa, Filomeno Miranda, Rolando de Guzman, Ernesto Mateo, Rodolfo Desolong, Ruben Aquino and Arnulfo Artates. Custodio died of cancer while in prison in 1991.

Also sentenced to life imprisonment were Moreno, Mario Lazaga, A1C Cordova Estelo and A1C Felizardo Taran.

The 16 were mostly members of the Aviation Security Command who took Aquino from the China Airlines plane at the then Manila International Airport on his return from exile in the United States.

The second Sandiganbayan trial acquitted 20 others that prosecutors said were accomplices in the conspiracy. They included Jose D. Aspiras, the then tourism minister; Maj. Gen. Prospero Olivas, then commander of the PC Metrocom; Jesus Singson, the former air transport minister; and Air Force Co. Arthur Custodio, former commander of the Villamor Airbase.