26 March 2008 (Update)

Dear Friends,

In our 24 March 2008 Urgent Action Alert, we wrote about the abduction of Jaime Soledad, his wife Clarita Luego and her cousin Vilma Madrazo on March 20, 2008 (Thursday).  Madrazo was released in the evening of the same day but the two remained missing until 24 March when the officials of Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna were finally forced to show them to their relatives.

Please find below the latest update on the case

UPDATE

The couple was flown to Leyte in Eastern Visayas on 25 March 2008 and was finally presented to the court in Hilongos, Leyte before Judge Ephrem Obando of the Regional Trial Court Branch 18. Obando was the same judge who on March 16, 2007 issued the warrant of arrest for suspects of the alleged 'mass graves' in Innopacan town. Jaime said he only learned that he was included in the warrant of arrest after his abduction and subsequent detention.

Clarita was released on the same day because she was not the subject of the warrant of arrest and there are no charges filed against her.  Jimmy was transferred to the Palo Provincial Jail. 

 

The multiple murder charge for which Jaime is co-accused with many other individuals, mostly Leftist leaders (who were in tight-security military prison at the time the alleged massacre took place), is under question.  A petition for certiorari and prohibition and for temporary restraining orders is pending at the Supreme Court.

We have received information that in 2001, Jaime was among the co-accused in a similar case of 'mass graves' in Baybay, Leyte but the case was dismissed in 2004.  The bones that were presented by the military as evidence in the "multiple murder case" in Baybay were allegedly the same bones presented in the Innopacan "multiple murder case."