A state prosecutor indicted for allegedly extorting P2.5 million from Philippine Airlines (PAL) employees has asked the Sandiganbayan to junk the criminal cases against him because of the failure of his fellow government prosecutors to submit the judicial affidavits of its witnesses on time.
In his motion before the antigraft court’s First Division, Assistant State Prosecutor Diosdado Solidum Jr. also accused state prosecutors of violating his right to speedy trial.
Solidum was indicted for direct bribery and violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees after he was arrested by National Bureau of Investigation agents in an entrapment operation in August 2013. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima herself had ordered the entrapment based on a complaint by 241 members of the PAL Employees Association (Palea) who had accused the state prosecutor of demanding P2.5 million from them in exchange for dropping a work stoppage case against them.
No affidavit, no ease
Solidum’s lawyer, Dioscoro Vallejos Jr., said Assistant State Prosecutor Ma. Lourdes Mendoza had told him during the preliminary conference of the case on July 6 that she had sent him by registered mail copies of the prosecution witnesses’ affidavits four days before the conference.
However, Vallejos said he had not received the documents in his listed address in San Pablo City, Laguna province.
Because he did not receive the affidavits, the lawyer told Mendoza that he “would no longer proceed with the preliminary conference” as they had filed a petition seeking the dismissal of the cases against Solidum.
“Mendoza explained that she had complied with the submission of the judicial affidavits as she had sent them by registered mail five days prior to the preliminary conference,” Vallejos said.