Santos guilty for not facing case: CIDG

SHE has yet to be tried in court but already, kidnap-homicide suspect Bella Santos condemned herself guilty before the public, a task force assigned in the Ellah Joy Pique case said yesterday.

Lawyer Inocencio dela Cerna, lead counsel of the Task Force Ellah Joy and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7), said the kidnap-homicide case will start only when Santos turns herself in.

“She (Santos) has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence thus she should be ready to face her case come hell or high water. By continually eluding arrest she chose to condemn herself as guilty in the bar of public opinion,” Dela Cerna said.

Relatives of Santos justified her disappearance by saying she is still waiting for the resolution of her petition for review filed by her lawyers before the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ has 60 days to resolve the petition.

Regardless of the resolution, the court still has the say whether or not to adopt the DOJ findings.

The Task Force Ellah Joy opposed the petition of the defense that sought a reversal of a ruling that indicted Santos and her British partner Ian Charles Griffiths.

“In what can be described as a desperate effort to delay the dispensation of justice, petitioner (accused) raised issues which are not proper to be resolved in a petition for review,” Dela Cerna said.

The task force requested the DOJ to dismiss the petition. Dela Cerna cited some requisites that the defense counsel failed to comply with in filing the petition.

He said the defense didn’t attach its petition to a motion to defer the proceedings before Regional Trial Court Judge Ester Veloso of Branch 6.

Dela Cerna also said they have witnesses who identified Santos and Griffiths as the same persons who kidnapped and threw the body of Ellah Joy off a cliff in Barili months ago.

Police has yet to arrest Santos whose whereabouts remain unknown. Griffiths was released from “police bail commitment” by authorities in the United Kingdom after he got arrested in relation to Ellah Joy’s death. This means, Griffiths is allowed to leave UK. Reporter Ador Vincent Mayol