Palace on Kian: Let law take due course
The law should be allowed to run its due course on the killing of 17-year-old student Kian delos Santos, Malacañang said yesterday.
Noting that criminal cases have been filed against the policemen involved in the killing, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said the process to attain justice has already started.
“Kian delos Santos has been laid to rest. A criminal complaint against the Caloocan policemen involved in the incident has already been filed. Investigation is now in the process,” Abella said in a statement.
“Let us allow the law to take its due course,” he added.
Delos Santos was among the 96 suspects who were killed this month in what the Philippine National Police described as a “one time, big time” operation against illegal drugs.
Police officials claimed they merely defended themselves from Delos Santos, who allegedly fired at the arresting officers.
But witnesses’ accounts contradict the police’s version of the event. According to them, policemen gave Delos Santos a gun, asked him to run before shooting him down.
In a Senate probe held days after Delos Santos was killed, police officials claimed the victim had been
into illegal drugs, citing social networking sites.
Murder and torture charges have been filed against four Caloocan policemen over the killing of Delos Santos, who was buried at the La Loma Cemetery, in Quezon City last Saturday.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) would continue its probe into the killing even after the filing of criminal charges.
Aguirre however said the parents were “uncooperative.”
He said the NBI forensic team went to the wake of Kian to conduct an autopsy but was refused.
“The NBI was not able to conduct its own autopsy because the parents refused to cooperate for reasons we do not know,” he said.
Aguirre stressed the autopsy was necessary to determine how many gunshot wounds the victim sustained, where he was shot and how near were the policemen when they shot him.
He said the autopsy would have been an opportunity to settle the difference in results of the two earlier autopsies done by the Northern Police District (NPD) and Public Attorney’s Office (PAO).
Forensic experts from NPD and PAO agreed Delos Santos was hit twice on the head, one behind the left ear and one through the ear itself.
Experts who conducted separate autopsies said the bullets that entered the head had an “upward trajectory,” indicating Delos Santos was prone when shot by an assailant standing on the left side of the victim.
The NPD forensic expert however was not able to determine if Delos Santos was shot at the back, as against the findings of PAO’s experts.
The parents had sought the services of the PAO experts to conduct a separate autopsy from the NPD.
Even without the autopsy sought by the NBI, Aguirre said they would pursue the probe despite the lack of cooperation from the Delos Santos family.
He said NBI could still come up with a report based on other pieces of evidence, including testimonies of witnesses and the barangay security video footage.
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