Shed light on plunder charge, Dichaves asks
BUSINESSMAN Jaime C. Dichaves, a co-defendant in the plunder case against former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph E. Estrada, has asked the Sandiganbayan to require the prosecution “to identify” the evidence against him before the court could issue an arrest warrant.
In an omnibus motion filed by Mr. Dichaves before the anti-graft court’s Seventh Division, he asked that the court require state prosecutors to identify the particular “acts” he committed and the evidence against him for plunder in the “more than sixty volumes of paper” submitted to the court.
Mr. Dichaves filed his motion though his counsel former solicitor-general and justice minister Estelito P. Mendoza, who also defended Mr. Estrada during his plunder trial.
“To facilitate... the personal determination of Court for ‘probable cause,’ accused respectfully submits that the prosecution be (made) to identify in the voluminous papers it had submitted the particular evidence upon which it relies for the court to issue a warrant of arrest against the accused,” the motion read.
Mr. Dichaves said the prosecution submitted about “thirty thousand pieces of papers,” noting that there is no “listing of the papers” contained in each volume.
He said he had the right “to know on what basis the prosecution seeks to have the court issue a warrant of arrest against him and on the basis of which the court will make its determination of probable cause.”
He also asked the court to require the prosecution to identify the acts committed pertaining to “each and every element” of plunder to justify a warrant of arrest.
Mr. Dichaves further asked the Sandiganbayan Seventh Division to give him 10 days to comment on the evidence identified by the prosecution.
The Supreme Court last January gave the anti-graft court the go- ahead to proceed with Mr. Dichaves’ arraignment and trial after the high court junked his plea challenging the Ombudsman’s finding of probable cause to indict him for plunder.
He was not tried alongside with Mr. Estrada as he left the country before an arrest warrant was issued against him in 2002. He resurfaced in 2010, three years after Mr. Estrada was convicted and pardoned in 2007.
The Supreme Court in 2013 issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) stopping the Office of the Ombudsman from reinvestigating the case as ordered earlier by the Sandiganbayan.
The TRO was likewise lifted last January.
Mr. Dichaves was charged with plunder after admitting he owned a dummy account under the name Jose Velarde which had been linked to Mr. Estrada during his impeachment trial in 2000 and was said to contain P3.2 billion at one point. Equitable PCI banker Clarissa Ocampo had testified before the Senate impeachment court at the time that it was Mr. Estrada who opened the account under that name.
Mr. Dichaves was also accused of helping Mr. Estrada obtain a P189.7million commission from the sale of Belle Corp. shares to the Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System.
Mr. Estrada was pardoned shortly after his conviction in 2007 by then President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo, who now represents the second district of Pampanga at the House of Representatives.