CA junks raps vs Delgado slay suspect

The Court of Appeals (CA) has reconsidered its March 18, 2008 decision and dismissed the charges of murder and less serious physical injuries recommended by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against businessman Luisito Gonzales and his driver, Antonio Buenaflor.

Gonzales, a grandson of the late former President Elpidio Quirino, and Buenaflor earlier asked the CA to reconsider its earlier decision, which affirmed the DOJ resolution recommending the filing of charges against them in connection with the March 10, 2007 murder of businessman Federico Delgado, son of shipping magnate Francisco Delgado, in Malate, Manila.    

In their motion for reconsideration, Gonzales and Buenaflor insisted that the finding of probable cause by the DOJ was not supported by evidence and attained through “haphazard and superficial study of evidence.”

The two also said that lone witness Analisa Pesico, the victim’s companion, could not have positively identified them as visibility at the crime scene at the time of Delagado’s death was poor. Delgado was stabbed to death in his residence at the Mayflower Building in Malate.

Gonzales and Buenaflor also doubted Pesico’s claim that she recognized the suspects while she was lying on the floor of the wardrobe area with her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound with straw and a necktie.

Last March 18, the appellate court’s Seventh Division junked the petition filed by Gonzales and Buenaflor seeking the issuance of a preliminary injunction to stop the DOJ from pursuing the filing of criminal charges against them before the Manila Regional Trial Court.

In its March 18 decision, the CA said Gonzales and Buenaflor, who claimed they were somewhere else when Delgado was killed, failed to present convincing evidence that it was truly impossible for them to be at the crime scene.

However, in its Aug. 29 decision, penned by Associate Justice Remedios Salazar-Fernando, the CA reversed its earlier ruling and said it has found enough reasons to seriously doubt the identification made by Pesico pointing to Gonzales and Buenaflor as the culprits.

According to the CA, a careful analysis of Pesico’s account would reveal that she did not really have sufficient opportunity to view the assailants at the time of the commission of the crime.

The CA also said Pesico “utterly missed out” important details in her first narration of the events that transpired during the commission of the crime.

“While her first sworn statement undoubtedly counts as a fresh account of the incident, there are valid reasons to suspect that the second sworn statement could have been tainted, if not supplied or suggested, considering that the intervening time between the execution of the first and second statements,” the CA said.

The CA also said there was “little certainty” in Pesico’s identification of the assailants.

“While Pesico claimed to have seen the faces of both of the assailants, there was only one cartographic sketch of one suspect. Oddly enough, the cartographic sketch does not even strike any close resemblance to the facial feature of anyone of the petitioners,” the CA said in its decision.