By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
FORMER police officer Michael Ray Aquino has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to junk the Philippine government’s request that he be extradited for the murder of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and Dacer’s driver, Emmanuel Corbito.
In his appeal filed Dec. 14, Aquino cited the lack of probable cause, noting the prosecution’s pattern of witness and evidence tampering.
Aquino anchored his appeal on the prosecution’s failure to produce Dacer and Corbito’s remains.
“Without a victim, there is no death. In the absence of death, there is no crime of murder. Without a crime, there can be no basis for a finding of probable cause,” he said.
Aquino, a former senior superintendent of the Philippines National Police and former member of the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), is charged with conspiring with then PNP chief now Sen. Panfilo Lacson in the murders of Dacer and Corbito, who have been missing since Nov. 24, 2000. Dacer’s car was later found abandoned in Maragondon, Cavite.
Forensic expert Dr. Raquel Fortun, who conducted tests on the remains recovered by the National Bureau of Investigation from the area where Dacer’s car was found, had earlier declared that the bones those of Dacer and Corbito. But a separate test done by the University of the Philippines upon the request of the NBI “indicated that the bone fragments tested negative for human DNA.”
The UP tests also stated “that the bone appeared to be animal skull.”
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. The DNA technology is now widely used in criminal investigations to help identify or exonerate persons as suspects.
Aquino also said that even if the DNA evidence was not considered, there was also the lack of physical evidence that showed death occurred in the crime scene.
He added that the Department of Justice has argued that the bodies were burned, hence the absence of mortal remains. Prosecutors have presented as evidence stray pieces of wood and rubber tires which they said proved that Dacer and Corbito’s bodies were burned for two hours.
Aquino said, “Anybody who has roasted a turkey knows that it takes hours to brown the bird let alone pulverize it to ashes. That no skeletons were found belies the assertion that the incineration reduced two human bodies to a few pieces of bone fragments.”
On the tampering of evidence, Aquino cited the Feb. 14, 2009 visit of Prosecutor Hazel Valdez to the detention cell of former Police Sr. Supt Cesar Mancao before he retracted and implicated Lacson in the double murder case. He said Valdez drafted Mancao’s affidavit without the presence of the latter’s lawyer.
Aquino also cited Mancao’s earlier affidavit disclosing the September 2007 visit of Maj. Gen. Romeo Preztosa, then the head of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines offering assistance, including relocation to Singapore, in exchange for testifying “against Lacson to fabricate, kind of.”
Murder charges have been filed against Lacson. He left the country last Jan. 5 after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He has not been seen since then.
Aquino said the evidence considered by the extradition judge, at best, proves intent. “Intent alone, however, cannot attach criminal liability, in the absence of the fact of death,” he said.
Aquino is detained at the Hudson Country Correctional Center in Kearny, New Jersey. He left the country for the United States in July 2001.
On April 23, 2008, the Philippine government requested Aquino’s extradition, which was granted on March 4 this year. On March 5, Aquino filed a writ for habeas corpus which was denied on Oct. 14, 2010.