Police probe of Jastiva "upsetting" city council

CEBU, Philippines - The manner in which the Cebu City Police Office is conducting the investigation of Leonardo Jastiva, the pastor accused of killing his own wife, is allegedly upsetting the city council as it may affect the peace and order situation of the city, this according to councilor Edgardo Labella.

In a resolution authored by Labella, the city council expressed its grave concern over the manner in which CCPO has conducted its investigation into the kidnapping of Judith Jastiva particularly on the former’s “single-minded” concentration on Leonardo as the sole suspect.

Leonardo is a pastor of the International Missionary Society of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church Reform Movement.

According to Labella’s resolution, the body has been witness recently to the shoddy manner in which CCPO handled the investigation and murder of Leonardo’s wife, Judith, last February.

Leonardo, who reported the abduction of his wife, was arrested by the police without warrant on the basis of “flimsy” circumstantial evidence through the tracing of text messages sent by kidnappers to cellular phones which ended up to be Leonardo’s.

The pastor explained that the text messages from the kidnappers were received on his Motorola cellphone which he forwarded to his Nokia cellphone before forwarding these to the police.

Jastiva was ordered released by the Regional Trial Court after a habeas corpus proceeding, ruling that the arrest was improper. The police accordingly failed to satisfy legal requirements for a warrantless arrest.

The Cebu City Prosecutors Office also dismissed the complaint for insufficiency of evidence.

Strangely however, Labella said that CCPO head Supt. Patrocinio Comendador shrugged off the dismissal of the case by the City Prosecutors Office saying it was part of the legal tricks to thwart further prosecution of the case.

“Betraying his mindset in the case, chief Comendador said there is no need to look for the killer because the police believe that Jastiva did it,” Labella said.

Labella said that Comendador mentioned they knew other people involved in the case and were studying all legal options, yet CCPO had not disclosed or even theorized on a possible motive why the pastor would want to kill his wife.

The narrow-minded concentration of CCPO on Jastiva as its only suspect had resulted in the violation of his constitutional rights with his arrest and detention without a warrant, Labella said. — Ferliza C. Contratista/BRP (THE FREEMAN)