News Update Manila RTC orders arrest of 7 cops in ‘torture video’

The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 1 has found “probable cause” that seven policemen, including one police official, are guilty of torturing a suspect right inside a police station – as shown in a video of the crime itself that was uploaded to the Internet August last year – and ordered warrants for their arrest to be issued. Manila RTC Judge Tita Bughao Alisuag has ordered the arrest of Senior Insp. Joselito Binayug, the alleged torturer in the video; Senior Police Officer 3 Joaquin de Guzman, SPO1 Rodolfo Ong Jr., SPO1 Dante Bautista, PO1 Nonito Binayug, PO1 Rex Binayug, and other John Does; as well as their station commander Supt. Rogelio Rosales Jr. Lawyer Rommel Bagares, one of the counsels of the widow of the alleged torture victim identified in the video as Darius Evangelista, has provided GMA News Online on Tuesday with a copy of the RTC’s order promulgated last Nov. 3. Evangelista has been missing since March 5 last year after being arrested by Manila policemen. A shocking footage of his ordeal came out August that year, prompting authorities, including the Commission on Human Rights, to conduct an investigation. The video of his ordeal on the video-sharing site YouTube in August 2010, showing Evangelista writhing in pain as Binayug tugged on his penis with the use of a string. [See: DOJ recommends charges for ‘torture cop,’ others] ‘Body of the crime’ Judge Alisuag also dismissed the motion to quash the criminal information filed against policemen. The motion to quash filed by respondents Rodolfo Ong and Rex Binayug, who argued that the court had lacked jurisdiction and that there was no “corpus delicti” of the person to constitute the crime of torture. Corpus delicti is the legal concept of “body of the crime” which does not necessarily refer to the body of the victim but rather the different elements comprising the crime itself. But the RTC pointed out that “A reading of Republict Act 9745 (Anti-Torture Act of 2009) would reveal that the corpus delicti is the torture itself resulting in the death.” The Department of Justice had recommended the filing of a criminal case against Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug, the policeman accused of torturing a suspected thief in August last year, and some of his colleagues at the Manila Police District. Binayug was dismissed from the service last Jan. 14 after a task force formed to investigate allegations of torture confirmed he was the policeman in the torture video. He has appealed his dismissal, but also faces an administrative case at the National Police Commission aside from the criminal case with the Manila RTC. VERA Files has, however, revealed that Binayug currently teaches as a part-time instructor at the privately run Philippine College of Criminology-Manila Law College (PCCR-MLC), where he has been teaching Crime Detection Investigation since last June. — RSJ