Dichaves insists on removal from hold departure list

Former President Joseph Estrada INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Businessman Jaime Dichaves insisted before the Sandiganbayan that he must be allowed to travel in and out of the country freely, saying he needs this to revive his export business so that he could provide for his family and fight his legal battles.

Dichaves, a co-accused in the plunder case of former President Joseph Estrada, pressed the anti-graft court’s special division to lift his hold departure order as well as the order of attachment issued against his conjugal home.

“He is in dire financial straits, and this is necessary so that he could find some means to defend himself against his pending cases and to support him and his family. He has no other source of income, and he has to work,” Dichaves said in his reply filed Monday through his lawyer Pacifico Agabin.

He’s back

Dichaves, who left the country shortly before Estrada was ousted in a popular uprising in 2001, also told the court that he is back in the Philippines.

Government prosecutors earlier opposed the businessman’s pleas to lift the hold departure and attachment order against him, saying he may just frustrate the ends of justice by leaving the country before the preliminary investigation on his plunder case is completed. They also said he did not need to have the hold order lifted because he was not in the country.

The Sandiganbayan, upon Dichaves’ motion, earlier recalled the warrant for his arrest and directed the Office of the Ombudsman to conduct a preliminary investigation on the case filed against him.

Dichaves allegedly owned the bank account where Estrada was accused of depositing billions. But the businessman has since denied conspiring with the former President to amass ill-gotten wealth. Estrada was convicted of plunder, and subsequently pardoned.

No basis

In his reply filed Monday, Dichaves said there was no basis for the hold departure and attachment order against him considering that no valid preliminary investigation had been conducted in his case.

Given this, there is also no finding of probable cause against him, and any warrant or order that restricts his liberty or seizes his property has no legal basis, he said.