Aussie in 'police frame-up' seeks embassy's help

ANGELES CITY – A retired Australian justice of the peace has sought help from the Australian embassy amid an arrest warrant issued against him last Thursday by the regional trial court here on charges of frustrated rape of a minor which he alleged was a mere extortion attempt by local policemen.

“I now seek from you a more positive intervention at a diplomatic level to have the charges against me dropped and the police who are involved in the setting up and operation of these extortion processes prosecuted,” Dr. Steven Soul, 58, said in his letter to Ambassador Rod Smith.

This, amid reports that several women whose underage children were allegedly being used by some policemen to frame up foreigners for extortion have reportedly volunteered to be under the government’s witness protection program.

“They no longer want to use their minor children to entrap foreigners for extortion. They are supposed to be under the care of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at the Clark Freeport to which they issued a statement implicating some local policemen in extortion activities against foreigners,” said a local politician who asked not to be named.

Soul said a man had submitted to the Australian embassy in Manila some documents substantiating his claim that he was a victim of a frame-up and an extortion attempt.

The STAR source lamented that the NBI has not acted on the allegations against local policemen since the witnesses sought government protection over a month ago.

Soul’s case stemmed from an incident at his apartment in Barangay Malabanias here last Aug. 13 when his former girlfriend arrived with two underage girls unknown to him.

In a report later, police said a team from the provincial investigation and detection office was alerted by the girls’ parents who supposedly got text messages seeking help and identifying Soul’s address.

Police said they allegedly caught Soul and another Australian in the act of attempting to molest one of the girls.

But Soul said he was merely framed up and denied even touching either his former girlfriend or any of the two minors.

Soul said he was detained at a police station where a certain Ranger asked him to shell out P500,000 to settle the case with the girl’s family out of court.

He later relented to pay a reduced sum of P300,000 and arranged with a friend to secretly take video footages of the payoff, but NBI agents allegedly monitored his phone calls and tipped off the police.

The deal, according to Soul, was called off and he was charged in court. He later posted P100,000 bail and left for Australia for fear for his life after subsequent developments supposedly confirmed the involvement of ranking police officers in the alleged frame-up.

In his letter to the Australian embassy, Soul said, “I believe that your consular officers, and pretty much every other person of note in Angeles, have been aware of the existence and operations of these syndicates and the effect from time to time on Australian expats and tourists.”    

An official of the Australian embassy, according to Soul, met recently with Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez to seek help on his case.

Soul lamented the issuance of the arrest warrant against him, alleging that when he posted P100,000 bail, somebody from the prosecutor’s office asked for an additional P10,000.

“I cannot go back to the Philippines so the warrant does not really worry me and I suspect that the police within this syndicate will have a hard time finding me and killing me in Australia but it is important that others are not subjected to this sort of extortion…,” he said.