Trumped-Up Drug Case: Aussie raps 3 cops for ordeal

ANGELES CITY - An Australian businessman, locked up in jail here for six months last year on trumped-up drug charges but whom the court later acquitted, has returned to get back at his police tormentors.

Trader John Brian Martin has filed perjury charges against three policemen — PO2 Edgardo Javar, PO1 Aurelio Iniwan and SPO4 Danilo Cadiz — whom the court found to have framed up the foreigner.

Martin’s ordeal has led to the publication of a book titled The Story of John Martin by American journalist Allan Atkins. The book is making the rounds of foreign expatriates here.

In his complaint with the National Police Commission (Napolcom), Martin recounted how the three policemen swooped down on his residence here on June 14 last year, based on a search warrant they got from a judge in Guimba, Nueva Ecija, some 50 kilometers away from this city.

The lawmen claimed that their search yielded five grams of shabu in tin foil. Martin and his Filipino wife Elvira were detained, although charges against her were not pursued after she gave the policemen P250,000.

Martin stayed in jail for almost six months. Sometime during his detention, the lawmen ordered him handcuffed to his bed at the Angeles University Hospital after he was found to be suffering from a heart ailment.

In acquitting Martin, Angeles City Regional Trial Court Judge Omar Viola cited conflicting testimonies of the three policemen and their failure to arrest Martin during an alleged drug buy-bust on June 4 last year, 10 days before the raid on the foreigner’s house.

In his complaint, Martin cited the three lawmen’s claim in their sworn affidavits that they found him to be selling shabu at his residence from May 24 to June 5 last year.

Martin, however, said he, his wife and their only child, Michelle, were on vacation in Hong Kong from May 26 to June 4.

The Martins used to have a successful nursery and landscaping business in Quezon City. They later sold it to develop the Greenland sports center here.

After his acquittal, Martin was quoted by the local paper Sun Star Pampanga as saying that "my only crime was having also sold my resort in Angeles, having some money in the bank, and therefore becoming a target."

He said what happened to him was a "clear case of extortion" to which he had refused to be victimized.

The Martins fled the country after the acquittal, with his three tormentors free of any charges.

Now Martin wants justice done. "(The policemen) caused me to suffer detention for nearly six months and major business (and) financial losses, incur large expenses for hospitalization, transportation and legal fees, (and) suffer permanent loss of credibility and integrity in the local business community," he said in his complaint.