Police experts begin examination of evidence against US Marines
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  1. #1

    Cool Police experts begin examination of evidence against US Marines

    Police experts begin examination of evidence against US Marines
    Bangkok Post, Thailand

    Manila (dpa) - Police forensic experts have begun examination of evidence against six United States marines accused of raping a Filipino woman in northern Philippines, an official said Thursday.

    Chief Superintendent Ernesto Belen, chief of the police crime laboratory, said they have begun conducting DNA tests on a used condom and underwear recovered from the crime scene.

    ``We will check the evidence for whatever bodily fluids may it be a semen or perspiration,'' he said, adding that the results of the tests will be forwarded to the state prosecutors handling the case.

    ``They (prosecutors) can then ask for DNA samples from the victim and the accused for matching,'' Belen said.

    The examination of the evidence came as the mother of the 22-year-old victim appealed to the public for support, stressing that she is fighting not only for her daughter but for all Filipino women.

    ``This battle is for every Filipino woman,'' she said in an interview in a local television.

    ``Let's close ranks because we don't want foreigners to again destroy the Filipino women's reputation.''

    The victim was allegedly raped by the suspects on November 1 inside a hired van being driven by a Filipino at the Subic Freeport, a former US naval base near Olongapo City, 90 kilometres north of Manila.

    Witnesses later saw the woman being dumped by the suspects on a roadside. The US soldiers met the victim inside a karaoke bar, where she had been drinking with relatives and friends.

    The mother of the victim belied reports that the victim went to Olongapo to work as an entertainer.

    ``It is not true that she went there to work. She went there along with her sister for a vacation,'' she said. ``I have no other wishes than justice for my daughter.''

    State prosecutors on Tuesday summoned the six US marines to attend preliminary investigation hearings scheduled on November 23 and 29 in Olongapo.

    The suspects have been in custody of the US embassy since November 3, when they were prevented from leaving the country due to the rape complaint against them.

    They were among more than 4,000 American troops who took part in joint military training exercises in the northern Philippines since the last week of October.

    The case has triggered protests in the Philippines and renewed calls for the government to abrogate a 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement allowing US troops to conduct joint military training exercises in the country.

    Ellie


  2. #2

    Cool

    US Marines want out -- Subic exec
    First posted 00:37am (Mla time) Nov 10, 2005
    By Tonette Orejas
    Inquirer News Service


    OLONGAPO CITY -- As the mother of the Filipino rape victim yesterday tearfully pleaded for justice for her daughter, a Philippine official said that the six US Marines who had allegedly violated her had asked to be transferred to their Okinawa home base.

    In a voice quivering with anger, the 45-year-old mother urged the Inquirer in a telephone interview to send this message to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: "Please help my daughter get justice."

    The senior official of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) told the Inquirer on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue that the Americans had made "unofficial requests" for the transfer to their 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit of the III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa.

    Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Zosimo Paredes, who is also executive director of the Presidential Commission on the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement, said the VFA does not prevent the accused in the rape case to leave the country.

    He said the VFA has "no qualification" as to where exactly an accused can be held "so long as they don't leave US custody."

    "There's really nothing there that says 'US custody in the Philippines'," Paredes said in an interview with the Inquirer. "Their only obligation is to make them available during judicial proceedings."

    Paredes also conceded that "we cannot compel" the US to keep the accused on Philippine soil so long as it complies with court orders for them to be presented on specific dates.

    Captain Burrel Parmer, public information chief of the US Marine contingent that joined the recently concluded military exercises in the Philippines, said he was unaware of the reported request.

    "The US Embassy still has custody of them and assured that it would make them available," Parmer said.

    "I want justice for her," the mother said in the first family statement on the Nov. 1 incident at the sprawling Subic Bay Freeport -- the largest US naval base outside the continental United States until it was shut down in 1992.

    "Binaboy nila ang pagkatao ng anak ko (They destroyed my daughter's reputation)," she said.

    She asked the Inquirer to stress that her 22-year-old daughter is a decent woman. "She is not a prostitute. They should not judge her character," she said.

    The mother, together with a son, also appeared in an interview with GMA television news, weeping and appealing that there should be no whitewash on the case and that Americans be jailed.

    Many people, she said, were trying to extend help to her daughter but she said she was wary of some who might want to use her for their political interests.

    "Ayaw kong pagpiyestahan nila ang anak ko (I don't want this issue to turn into a circus)," she said.

    "Don't pity my daughter. Our fellow Filipinos should instead be angry at the Americans who abused her. This is not solely my daughter's battle. It must be our people's fight because those soldiers abused a Filipina."

    Overnight, she said the incident had changed her family and thrown her other four children into confusion and feelings of shame.

    As the mother tried to help her daughter overcome the trauma, she was also helping her other children cope with the situation.

    "They are either embarrassed [about] what happened or couldn't accept it. I told them they shouldn't feel shame for their sister because she herself did not like what happened to her. Often, I tell them that what their sister needs now is understanding and support," she said.

    The mother said her daughter had a full life ahead of her until she was abused.

    The victim's father, a former Navy officer -- not an Army soldier as identified in earlier reports -- and her mother, a government employee, gave her a college education.

    The daughter has been receiving counseling from crisis management specialists of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. She had come to Subic to accompany a stepsister to meet her boyfriend. In the course of bar-hopping, she was taken to a van, where she was allegedly raped, according to accounts by freeport officials.

    The incident, the mother said, has disrupted their lives and their food business in Zamboanga City but this is not important anymore.

    "She is our priority now, nothing else," the mother said.

    In Manila, Senator Richard Gordon released a letter from the mother requesting for assistance. He said he also received a phone call from her.

    "For my daughter, the ordeal of living with fear, depression and humiliation is indeed very painful and even much more agonizing for a mother like me who sees her young daughter in moments of torment and despair," the mother said in her Nov. 4 letter.

    "We are very much aware of the consequences that we have to face like the series of investigations, examinations and scrutiny from all concerned agencies and concerned organizations, particularly the media, and all other vital procedures that we need to undergo," she said.

    "Inasmuch as we would want to protect my daughter and our family from further dilemma, we deem it appropriate to seek professional help in order for us to deal with or cope with our situation."

    Gordon said the mother made the same request when she called him by phone from Subic last Monday, a day before the Olongapo City prosecutor's office issued the subpoenas on the servicemen for the preliminary investigation on Nov. 23 and 29.

    Victim wants to go home

    "They asked for help and they need lawyers. Basically they'd like to pursue the case," Gordon, a member of the legislative oversight committee on the VFA said in an interview with the Inquirer.

    Gordon tapped Manuel Quijano, a former member of the Accra law office and former deputy administrator of the SBMA, to serve as the family's private lawyer pro bono.

    A criminal complaint signed by the victim, who requested that she not be identified, said she was raped on the night of Nov. 1 by the Americans from the aircraft carrier USS Essex. The Americans were on the last night of a furlough after participating in the RP counterterrorism exercises which ended last week.

    "This incident does not speak for the VFA, for the American people. It's just them. Let's just prosecute them to the hilt," said Gordon.

    Shabby treatment

    City Prosecutor Prudencio Jalandoni said the victim had requested to return to Zamboanga City, where she lived. He could not say if her return to Zamboanga was permanent and would only come to Olongapo City for the preliminary investigation on Nov. 23 and 29.

    Also yesterday, the Inquirer learned that the victim had complained that a doctor at the James L. Gordon Memorial Hospital in Olongapo City had treated her shabbily. The victim narrated to Representative Milagros Magsaysay of Zambales that the doctor had asked the rape victim why she was still at the hospital the morning after the incident.

    The victim replied that she was confused and didn't know. "Maybe you had it coming," the doctor reportedly told her.

    US Chargé d'Affaires Paul Jones met with Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat. Jones reiterated that the embassy would cooperate in the investigation of the incident.

    In Jolo, US soldiers on a humanitarian mission ferried 13,000 pounds of educational materials and 2,000 pounds of medical supplies.

    Sulu Governor Benjamin Loong said the Subic incident was an "isolated case." With reports from Volt Contreras, TJ Burgonio, Philip C. Tubeza, Christine O. Avendaño and Jerome Aning; Allan Macatuno, PDI Central Luzon Desk; and, Charlie C. Señase and Julie S. Alipala, PDI Mindanao Bureau


    Ellie


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