Army probes 5 Scout Rangers over failed coup

Five Scout Ranger enlisted personnel accused of involvement in last year’s failed military uprising were interviewed by military prosecutors and investigators at their cells in Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal last week.

A team from the Army Inspector General, Intelligence Service Group and the Judge Advocate General’s Office took the statements of the detained soldiers.

The five were among the 40 enlisted personnel ordered detained by AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. at the military stockade in Tanay last year.

Of the 40 soldiers implicated in the failed coup, 26 have already been dismissed from the service without facing charges, while nine others are being convinced by the Army to turn state witness against their 28 senior officers now facing court-martial.

“They were told that they were being investigated for attempting to create mutiny and inciting other soldiers to mutiny,” defense lawyer Vicente Verdadero said.

As their counsel, Verdadero advised the soldiers to issue a general denial and say that this is the first time they were informed of the charges against them and why they are being held.

“It was only last Friday that they (soldiers) were informed of their offense and why they are being detained,” he said.

Verdadero said on Feb. 23 last year the soldiers, all Scout Rangers, were ordered to report to their regiment at Camp Tecson in San Miguel, Bulacan.

The following month, the soldiers were summoned to Fort Bonifacio where they were placed under arrest without being notified of the charges against them, he added.

Verdadero questioned the Army’s motive for detaining the five soldiers in Camp Capinpin and holding the nine others in Fort Bonifacio.

If indeed the soldiers had committed an offense, they should have been charged and jointly tried, he added. – Jaime Laude