Cops want 3rd autopsy on Ortega slay witness

MANILA, Philippines - Police wanted a third autopsy on the remains of a vital witness in the January 2011 killing of broadcaster-environmentalist Gerry Ortega, as Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas refused to accept that he committed suicide in his detention cell in Quezon province last Feb. 5.

Senior Superintendent Dionardo Carlos, acting Quezon police director, said the other day they would ask the family of witness Dennis Aranas to agree to another autopsy. 

“We all want (to know) what really caused (Aranas’) death,” said Carlos amid conflicting findings by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO).

Roxas has ordered Quezon jail officials to submit to him reports on the death of Aranas, including the names of the jail guards on duty during his death, to be able to get the real picture surrounding the incident.

He said he could not accept the suicide angle because of “evidence contrary to the suicide reports. The language that I saw in the report was the victim was lying down.”

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Alan Purisima has instructed Calabarzon and Quezon police officials to further investigate Aranas’ death.

Ortega’s family has also dismissed the suicide angle and demanded further investigation.

The PAO’s post-mortem findings indicated that Aranas had likely been beaten up, held down and strangled by at least four persons.

Carlos said a third party like the PNP Crime Laboratory could conduct the third autopsy.

‘NBI findings not yet conclusive’

An NBI official, however, said yesterday the findings of the agency’s medico-legal division are not yet conclusive.

“The finding of our medico-legal (division) that the cause of death is asphyxia by hanging, does not necessarily mean that the cause of death is suicide. There is also a possibility that the cause is homicidal or by accident,” said lawyer Virgilio Mendez, NBI deputy director for regional operations services.

“They have to wait for the final result of our criminal investigation before we come out with our conclusion as for the death (of Aranas),” Mendez told The STAR.

He said the NBI never concluded yet that it was a “suicide.”

“The report is not yet final. Possibly by Monday or earlier there will be a report. There was also a finding of the PAO that the door was closed from the inside,” he said.

Mendez said the NBI would still conduct a “behavioral investigation” with the inmates of the Quezon provincial jail as to Aranas’ condition before he died.

Mendez said the PAO did not conduct its own autopsy. “So how can they can make a conclusion already?” he said.

“How can they say there were four persons who killed him? The PAO said there were scratch marks on the neck and near the eye. There were no scratch marks. I don’t know where their doctor got the information,” he said.

In a recent press briefing, PAO chief Percida Acosta said the findings of Dr. Erwin Erfe, her agency’s forensic consultant and forensic laboratory director, indicated that Aranas, who reportedly served as lookout in Ortega’s killing, died of strangulation contrary to the claim of the NBI and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.

Acosta said the autopsy conducted by Erfe showed vital signs that Aranas’ death was not self-inflicted.

She said Aranas could have been beaten up by “maybe four persons” that could have caused his death in his cell.

Acosta said Aranas “sustained multiple physical injuries with fingernail marks on his neck and right forearm; suffered from hematoma on his lower lip, swollen left periorbital area and contused tissue on the right shoulder area, anterior aspect lower third of both forelegs and other parts of the body.”

Acosta said the autopsy was conducted upon the request of Aranas’ wife, mother and siblings who went to her office last Friday. – Cecille Suerte Felipe, Sandy Araneta, Michelle Zoleta, Edu Punay