Prosecution witness in Boratong drug case switches sides

A witness against alleged Pasig City shabu flea market operator Amin Imam Boratong said at a hearing yesterday that prosecutors from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and police officers “coached” her to testify against Boratong.

Cherryl Pace, 23, told Pasig City Regional Trial Court Judge Abraham Borreta that she decided to join forces with Boratong and his wife, Sheryl Molera, because her conscience kept bothering her.

“I could not stomach anymore all the lies being fed on me by my ‘handlers,’” she said.

Defense lawyer Raymund Fortun said Pace volunteered her services to his client and in fact, they met only once before she testified in favor of Boratong and Molera last Oct. 9.

Fortun said Pace’s testimony weakens the maintenance of a drug den case against his clients and Molera because it shows “the active participation of the prosecutors to twist facts.”

Fortun is planning to file subornation perjury charges against the DOJ prosecutors.

In the Oct. 9 hearing, Fortun said Pace named the four prosecutors who coached her but refused to identify the policemen involved “out of fear for her life.”

Pace is the fifth defense witness presented by Fortun in the defense of Boratong, who was arrested following a Feb. 10, 2006 raid on a shabu den in Barangay Sto. Tomas, Pasig City.

Pace was one of the witnesses presented by the prosecution that led to the sentencing of Borreta to life imprisonment and various life terms against 65 accused in the shabu flea market raid.  – Non Alquitran