Lawyers decry ‘illegal’ arrest of BOC man

Lawyers of a Customs official charged in a Pasay City court for plunder have sought the immediate release of their client, who they claimed was illegally arrested last Jan. 8 for his alleged failure to account for his cash collection amounting to P53,214,258. The amount represents proceeds of sale of documentary stamps from January 2000 to October 2002.

Human rights lawyer Reynaldo Bagatsing and co-counsel Vicente Lasam filed with the court a motion for the release of Ernesto Fajardo.

In their petition, Bagatsing and Lasam assailed the National Bureau of Investigation-NCR for having subjected their client to a warrantless arrest last Jan. 8 as well as coercing him to sign a waiver without the presence of a counsel of his choice.

Bagatsing explained that a warrantless arrest is only justified under three circumstances, namely when in the presence of a peace officer or a private person, 1) the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense; 2) when an offense has just been committed and he has probable cause to believe based on personal knowledge of the facts or circumstances that the person to be arrested has committed it; and 3) when the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where he is serving final judgment or is temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.

"Not one of the circumstances mentioned in Article 113 of the revised Rules of Court applies to Fajardo as he was not arrested in flagrant delicto, and that his arresting officer did not have personal knowledge of the crime imputed against him as they were allegedly committed from January 2002 to October 2002 and not the day of his arrest on Jan. 8, 2003," Bagatsing said.

In the instant case, the NBI justified Fajardo’s arrest and detention based only in a Commission on Audit analysis of his accountability covering January 2000 up to October 2002.