Defense: Evidence "tampered"

CEBU, Philippines - The defense panel in the kidnapping with homicide case against Bella Ruby Santos questioned the alleged tampering of the autopsy report by the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory.

Lawyer Julius Caesar Entise, one of the counsels for the accused, noted the alteration in the entry of the report wherein medico-legal officer Dr. Nestor Sator changed the word “primary placidity” to “secondary placidity”.

Entise and fellow defense lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo said that alteration could be considered “tampering” of evidence because it was done only two weeks before Sator was called to testify for the prosecution.

The defense counsels also claimed that Sator did not inform the court about his changing of the portion of his report. Sator explained that it was just a “clerical error.”

Sator took the witness stand yesterday as the prosecution’s fifth witness against Santos. He told the court that Ellah Joy Pique died of “blunt traumatic head injury”.

Based on his examination, the victim sustained minor wounds at the top of her head mostly at the right back portion, right side of the chin and inside the lower lip.

According to Satur, the victim could have been hit by a stone or a wood. The injuries suggest, according to him, that there could be more than one perpetrator.

Santos and her British boyfriend Ian Charles Griffiths were charged for the child’s death. Pique was abducted in February last year in Barangay Calajoan, Minglanilla. The victim was on her way home when she was allegedly snatched by the accused. Her body was found in Barili a day after she went missing. (FREEMAN)