After suing for libel, Rizal Alih wants detention raps dropped

The lawyer of renegade policeman Rizal Alih is asking a Quezon City court to dismiss the serious illegal detention cases against his client on the ground that he was never arraigned for these charges.

Citing court records, defense counsel Fernando Pena said Alih, 67, was arraigned for murder in 2006 in relation to the 1989 siege of Camp Cawa-Cawa in Zamboanga City, which left two high-ranking police officials dead. He then pleaded not guilty.

“It is very glaring and obvious now that the accused did not understand or knew that he would be prosecuted for the crime of serious illegal detention. The information that was read for him by the court staff was that of the crime of murder,” the lawyer said in a pleading.

Earlier this week, Alih also sued movie director Carlo J. Caparas and wife Donna Villa for libel over a 1991 film which Alih said wrongly depicted him as having beheaded Gen. Eduardo Batalla during the 1989 siege.

Alih, through his lawyer, filed a motion to dismiss before Regional Trial Court Branch 101, which is hearing the serious illegal detention case against him in relation to the siege.

The attack had been blamed on Alih, who escaped and went into hiding in Malaysia until his arrest and deportation to the Philippines in 2006.

He has since been detained at the Camp Crame custodial center in Quezon City.

The prosecution initially filed two counts of murder against Alih for the deaths of Batalla and Col. Romeo Abendan.

In his motion to dismiss, Pena noted that in 2006, state prosecutors filed an amended charge sheet against Alih and several John Does, still for the crime of murder.

“However, in the said motion, the prosecution did not specifically state that the crime of murder will be amended and replaced with a new and distinct crime of serious illegal detention,” the defense said.

Alih was arraigned in September 2006 for two counts of murder and pleaded not guilty, court records showed.

In a demurrer to evidence, the defense later asked the court in 2009 to dismiss the murder charges on grounds of insufficient evidence.

The following year, the court junked the pleading and changed the charges to serious illegal detention.

The court explained in its order that “if murder was the offense defined as alleged in the information, the accused would have been acquitted for lack of direct evidence to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that he murdered the victims.”

Batalla’s death certificate says he died of a heart attack and sixth-degree burns. A medico-legal officer had testified in 2007 that he found no gunshot wounds or lacerations on the corpse.

In an interview, Pena said both documents disprove the charge that Alih beheaded Batalla.

Abendan, on the other hand, died of severe burns from the siege, Alih’s lawyer said.

Pena argued that his client’s right to due process was grossly violated with the turn of events.

He explained that the amended charge of serious illegal detention is “distinct and different” from the original case of murder—a substantial amendment that requires reinvestigation at the prosecutors’ level.

The lawyer added that the amended information “prejudiced the rights of the accused.”