Murder i wrote (alleged Abu Sayyaf members’ bombing)

Pavel Filonov. Two Heads. 1925. Oil on paper, 58×54 cm. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Right-clicked from http://www.abcgallery.com

Complaints for multiple murder and frustrated murder have been filed against the three suspects who survived the Payatas shoot-out; another raid was conducted in Malate yesterday.

 

PNP Director Avelino Razon said on TV this morning that the Batasan bomb blast was an assassination of Wahab Akbar that became a bomb attack; and that there might be two masterminds. I’m not sure what he meant. Maybe what he meant was, the alleged bombers had planned to assassinate Wahab Akbar, but since they were bombers too, they bombed the South Wing as Akbar and other congressmen and staff were coming out. Or that: the alleged bombers had planned to assassinate Wahab Akbar, then another group found out about it and piggybacked on it and ordered them to bomb the South Wing while congressmen were out. Or that: the group of bombers had planned to assassinate Akbar but they decided that if they were going to kill one person, they might as well kill many.

 

At this time, the only piece of physical evidence linking the surviving suspects of the Payatas raid to the crime is the motorcycle. They supposedly had the deed of sale of the motorcycle that was used to carry the bomb. (To be more precise, from the blast, there were charred parts of a motorcycle with a part of the bar code of the chassis number recognizable, two digits missing; the entire bar code not reconstructed; and the suspects had the deed of sale of a motorcycle the numbers of which matched the digits of the bar code; although there’s no certificate of registration, as I understand it.)

 

The rest are testimonial evidence; admissible only if the police and the investigators had followed the steps: if they had mirandized the suspects, in a language they understood, before they were taken; then while in custody, if they had asked the suspects to sign a waiver of those rights in the presence of a lawyer; after which during interrogation if they had not used torture.

 

Without those steps, the “narration” , a term used by the prosecutors assigned to this case to refer to the supposed confession of the suspects, is inadmissible.

 

While the police and the CIDG had not released the names of those whom they think or suspect are masterminds, or those whom they are investigating as masterminds, they had released the contents of the “narration” of the suspects. Those pieces of “narration” refer to a house and a coffee shop owned by a former congressman and political rival of Akbar, the supposed employment of one of the suspects with one partylist rep; and another “confession” from one of the suspects that they had been ordered by a former town mayor of Basilan to kill Akbar.

 

Those pieces of “narration”, if uncounseled, are inadmissible in evidence; and if tortured or acquired by torture, are unreliable.

 

In other words, the political rivals of Akbar are being tried in public by publicity through potentially uncounseled tortured statements.

 

We don’t know better because we like to read the murder being written.