The Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office has indicted the third suspect in the robbery and killing of Nursing student Ruby Jade Ruba early last month.
Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon yesterday filed the case for robbery with homicide against Karl Marx Villa Carticiano before the Regional Trial Court with no bail recommended.
Assistant city prosecutor Liceria Rabillas found probable cause to indict Carticiano after he was identified by witnesses as the driver of the motorcycle that served as get-away vehicle of the two other accused previously charged in court.
Carticiano was first implicated by Aivan Romanac Barabat and Mark Anthony Labitad, who confessed to the crime but later recanted their extra-judicial confession, as their driver when they robbed and killed Ruba on the midnight of March 6 along Governor Roa Street in barangay Capitol Site.
Barabat and Labitad claimed they were tortured by the police to admit to the crime. They vehemently denied being with Carticiano when Ruba was robbed and killed.
Carticiano likewise denied being in the company of Barabat and Labitad during the incident. However, the prosecutor said there were witnesses who positively identified Barabat as the gunman who immediately boarded the waiting motorcycle.
“On the basis of the eyewitnesses account and the physical evidence attached to the records, the undersigned finds probable cause to believe that the incident complained of actually happened and the identity of the respondent by positive identification of the eyewitnesses is the same person who drove the getaway motorcycle,” Rabillas’ resolution reads.
According to the prosecutor, the defense of Carticiano that he was drinking with his friends when the crime happened could be threshed out during the full-blown trial and could be better appreciated by the court.
Rabillas said this also applies to the withdrawal of Barabat and Labitad to their earlier admission. Barabat and Labitad had dismissed its public attorney in favor of a private counsel for their defense. — Fred P. Languido/LPM