Businessman cleared of smuggling charges

The Cebu City Prosecutor's Office cleared a businessman accused of smuggling a right-hand-drive vehicle, and resisting arrest by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, after the Regional Trial Court quashed the search warrant it earlier issued.

City prosecutor Nicolas Sellon dismissed the case for violation of Section 1 of Republic Act 8506, which prohibits the importation of right-hand-drive vehicles, and Article 151 of the Revised Penal Code otherwise known as disobedience and resistance to a person in authority, or the agent of such person, against businessman Russ Jao.

Sellon said that there is no basis to indict Jao of the charges filed by CIDG because the evidence against him had already been declared invalid after the search warrant was quashed.

Sellon said that aside from the fact that RTC Judge Ireneo Gako quashed the search warrant he issued against Jao, the location of the steering gear box and brake booster mountain hole at the right side of the seized Toyota MRS vehicle is not enough proof. "It merely suggests that the Toyota MRS may at one point in time have been a right-hand-drive vehicle," the prosecutor's resolution read.

Jao's act of trying to block the police operatives from taking the vehicle outside of his shop was normal as he was just trying to protect his property from alleged unlawful aggression by the police.

The prosecutor stated that it is very clear that the vehicle seized by the police was not covered by the search warrant.

CIDG raided on the night of August 5 Jao's surplus shop in barangay Kinasang-an, Cebu City, which resulted to the seizure of a Toyota sports car. - Fred P. Languido