Twist of fate surprises French shooting survivor

JULIEN Jerome Mathieu Maillard at the Talisay City prosecutor’s office where he filed murder and frustrated murder cases against four men involved in his and two other foreigners’ shooting. A warrant for his arrest for a case filed by his ex-wife, a Filipina, has been served on Maillard in the same office. LITO TECSON/CEBU DAILY NEWS

CEBU CITY—The French man who survived a gun attack in a fast-food restaurant in Talisay City ended up being arrested by police for a charge of abuse filed by his Filipino wife, which the French man denied.

Policemen served an arrest warrant on Julien Jerome Mathieu Maillard on Tuesday as the French was filing charges against four men involved in the gun attack that wounded Maillard and Chenten Saparaiya, an Indian, and killed Henry Haffner, a German.

The three foreigners were shot on Feb. 20 inside a McDonalds branch in the village of Tabunok in Talisay.

Maillard had been charged by his estranged Filipino wife with violating the

Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act.

P24,000 bail

Maillard said his friends had been helping him post bail of P24,000.

He said he had been married to a woman he knew only as Vicentita, who is from Siquijor, and decided to leave her after four years. They have no children.

Maillard said he financially supported his estranged wife until she started living with a new partner.

He said he learned that his wife sold their resort in Siquijor after their separation but he said he had no plans to question it.

He added he could not recall abusing his wife.

Maillard, 31, and a tourist temporarily staying in the village of Pooc in Talisay, had just been released from the hospital on Tuesday when he went to the prosecutor’s office to file murder and frustrated murder charges against the four men who shot him, Sapariaya and Haffner.

Gunmen

Those involved in the attack were identified as Dexci Gomonte, Ricci Edwin Ramirez Jr., Roger Cal and Allan Veloz. Gamonte remains to be at large.

Maillard said he was shocked when SPO1 Mikie Espina, of the Talisay City police, served the warrant issued in October 2012 by Judge Alejandro Bahonsua Jr. of the Regional Trial Court Branch 46 in Larena, Siquijor.

Espina said police in Siquijor coordinated with the Talisay City police after they learned about Maillard’s whereabouts in the TV report on the gun attack.

Maillard asked Espina not to arrest him but the police officer said he had no choice but serve the warrant.

“I’ll go back to the hospital. I will just stay in the hospital,” Maillard, who is fluent in Cebuano, told Espina.

Fear

He declined to be placed in the same detention cell with Veloz, one of those charged with the gun attack, because “I will be finished off there.”

PO3 Rey Bucao said Maillard was allowed to stay in a different detention facility.

Maillard was supposed to return to France on Wednesday. “I want to talk to my [former] wife. I want to go to Siquijor,” Maillard said.