THE Court of Appeals (CA) has affirmed the decision issued by the Regional Trial Court in Taguig City acquitting 22 alleged members of Abu Sayyaf terrorist group of kidnapping and serious illegal detention with ransom involving six members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Patikul, Sulu, on August 20, 2002.
In a 16-page decision written by Associate Justice Eleuterio Bathan, the CA’s Fourth Division held that while it recognized that the kidnapping took place, the trial court was correct when it ruled that prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the 22 individuals were the actual perpetrators.
‘Since there is no full certainty as to their identification, the constitutional presumption of innocence must prevail, and their acquittal must stand,’ the CA said in denying the appeal filed by the government through the Office of the Solicitor General.
The CA agreed with the trial court that the prosecution’s main witness Amily Mantec failed to provide detailed physical descriptions of their kidnappers following her escape in 2003.
It held that there was a significant delay in the identification of the accused, which took more than a decade after the abductions.
The CA said when Amily escaped from captivity on April 18, 2023, she did not immediately execute an affidavit as the earliest affidavit formally offered by the prosecution was dated June 30, 2023.
‘This meant she could not immediately provide a prior description of her captors. She made the description only after the private respondents were already arrested, which took place over the span of several years from 2004 to 2015, and during her testimony,’ the CA pointed out.
‘Because she could not provide a proper prior description of the private respondents, her identification was dubious,’ the ruling added.
The unreliability of Mantec’s identification, according to the CA, was bolstered by the fact that her attention was divided by the numerous men who were present guarding them, aside from the traumatizing order she went through, including the beheading of her husband and being forced to change religion and marry into the group.
‘Consequently, the petitioner failed to prove that the private respondents were properly identified as the authors of the crime,’ the CA said.