US Marine slay case: OSG hits Makati judge who let convicts ‘wander free’

The government is asking the Court of Appeals to order the arrest of two men who were convicted of killing an American Marine officer in 2012 but were allowed to go on probation by a Makati City judge, a move that dismayed the US Embassy.

In a petition filed Jan. 26, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) asked the appellate court to set aside the September 2014 order of Judge Winlove Dumayas suspending the prison sentence of Crispin de la Paz and Galicano Datu III, two of the four men put on trial for the murder of US Marine Major George Anikow.

The American, then a Makati Bel-Air resident, and the four men figured in a brawl on the night of Nov. 24, 2012, after the latter demanded access through a gate going to Rockwell complex. A reportedly drunk Anikow was beaten and stabbed to death.

In June last year, Dumayas, of the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 59, found De la Paz and Datu guilty but for the lesser crime of homicide, sending them to prison for up to six years and ordering them to pay Anikow’s family in New Jersey P375,000 in damages.

The judge cited their acts of “incomplete self-defense” and “voluntary surrender” as mitigating circumstances in downgrading their offense. Acquitted were Juan Alfonso Abastillas and Osric Cabrera.

Dumayas denied the prosecution’s motion for reconsideration in November 2014. In a television interview a month later, US Ambassador Philip Goldberg expressed disappointment over the suspension of the sentence, saying no one had “served a day for that brutal crime.”

In the OSG petition, Acting Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said Dumayas acted with grave abuse of discretion in granting probation, saying his finding that the two convicts had acted in self-defense “contradicts physical evidence and settled jurisprudence.”

“Allowing those who were found responsible for Anikow’s death to wander free under practically negligible restraints belittles not only the crime they committed, but also Anikow’s life—the life he had lived and the life that he now has no chance of living,” Hilbay said.

Citing case records, the OSG noted that a bleeding Anikow already fled after an “initial scrimmage” with the four men at the gate and yet he was still chased by the group, as shown in a security camera footage that was submitted as evidence.

That the men pursued, beat and repeatedly stabbed Anikow until he was motionless proved that it was no self-defense but a clear “abuse of superior force… that qualified their crime as the more serious offense of murder,” the petitioner added.

The OSG also noted that Anikow’s family was denied the chance to react to the convicts’ application for probation, despite requests from the US Embassy for more time to get the family’s response.

“Probation officers did not attempt to ask a statement from Anikow’s family regarding the application. The family was not given reasonable time to present objections,” it added.

Anikow’s sister Lisa sent her opposition through a letter on Sept. 3, 2014, two days after Dumayas granted the application.

“Anikow and his family, although aliens, are entitled to the minimum standard of protection from Philippine courts. Their objections should have been examined in court and taken into consideration,” the OSG said.