RP assured of US help in extradition cases

US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone assured Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez yesterday that individuals wanted in the Philippines would be extradited if found in the United States.

"In big picture terms, we could cooperate (on) how we could make the rule of law stronger in both countries, and what we could do to improve extradition proceedings ... and in many other cases as well, how to improve prosecution of trafficking in persons and drug cases, how to strengthen legislation," he said.

During a visit at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Padre Faura street in Manila yesterday, Ricciardone told Gonzalez that the US is ready "to provide anything" that the Philippines could possibly need.

"So we had broad, strategic conversation," he said. "We really look forward to working with the secretary."

Earlier, Gonzalez said the government would ask the US to speed up the extradition of American Rod Lawrence Strunk, husband of actress Nida Blanca who is the principal suspect in her November 2001 murder.

"We should treat the Americans’ request in the same manner as they treat ours," he said.

"If they still ask for so many more evidence and adopt standards different from ours even if we think that what we have presented are enough, and that is why we filed this extradition case, then we should do the same thing," Gonzales said.

However, Ricciardone said he and Gonzalez did not talk about the Blanca murder case or the government’s extradition case against Strunk.

Ricciardone said it would be up to prosecutors in the Philippines and the US to decide on how to handle the Strunk extradition case.

"We’re working very hard together to strengthen requests for extradition in every case in both directions," he said.

Gonzalez said the government believes it has enough evidence to request for Strunk’s extradition but that a US court in California did not appreciate it.

"I was told that what we have are circumstantial evidence, which may stand in court and convict," he said. "It all depends on how the evidence are presented."

Gonzalez said the evidence against Strunk is circumstantial because no witness has surfaced to testify in court.

"But unfortunately because of the publicity generated by the case, there was a hasty filing in court," he said.

"Now we may not be able to recover the case in the court unless we order it withdrawn for further preliminary investigation."

Gonzalez said he had not yet seen the new evidence the government would present in filing a new extradition case against Strunk before a US court.

Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño told him the National Bureau of Investigation should have conducted a thorough investigation of the case and gathered stronger evidence, he added.

Chief presidential legal counsel Merceditas Gutierrez, the predecessor of Gonzalez, said the government has been wrapping up a new extradition case against Strunk with new witnesses.

"We are confident that we can get him back now because we are guided by the concerns raised by the US judge," she said.

DOJ officials, along with those of the NBI and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, have been meeting weekly with former Commission on Elections chairman Harriet Demetriou, counsel of Blanca’s daughter Kaye Torres, she added.

On Nov. 12 last year, a US judge denied the government’s request for Strunk’s extradition on grounds of insufficient and inconsistent evidence.

A Quezon City court allowed Strunk to leave for the US in 2002 to visit his ailing mother, but he has not returned even after his mother died.

Philip Medel, who had earlier confessed to killing Blanca and pointed to Strunk as the mastermind, later retracted in an emotional scene during his preliminary investigation at the DOJ.

Blanca was found murdered in November 2001 at the back seat of her car, which was parked on the upper floor of a building in San Juan that housed the offices of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

Blanca was an official of the MTRCB at the time of her death.