2 Kerwin henchmen facing drug charges killed
Two henchmen of self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa have been killed, it was learned yesterday.
Noel Pepito and Max Miro, who were also facing drug charges, would no longer be able to appear in the reinvestigation of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the drug charges against Espinosa and Cebuano businessman Peter Lim, which will start on April 12.
Upon serving of subpoena on respondents, the process server of the DOJ learned that Pepito and Miro were killed in separate incidents.
Pepito was killed by gunmen on a motorcycle in Albuera, Leyte on Dec. 1 last year while Miro was slain in a police operation conducted in Ormoc, Leyte last March 10.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) said the deaths of Pepito and Miro would not hinder the prosecution of Espinosa, Lim and the other accused.
“The law provides that criminal liability is extinguished when the accused are dead. Their deaths, however, have no direct effect against the other accused. Thus, the prosecution against the living accused would continue,” PNP spokesman Chief Supt. John Bulalacao said in a text message.
Pepito and Miro were among those summoned by the DOJ for the preliminary reinvestigation by a new panel of prosecutors as ordered by Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
Apart from Pepito and Miro, the panel chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera also summoned Espinosa, Lim and other respondents in the case – inmate Peter Co, Ruel Malindangan and Lovely Adam Impal.
The DOJ also summoned the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) to the hearing.
The reinvestigation was set “to allow the complainant and respondents to submit additional pieces of evidence in support of their respective positions.”
Other members of the new panel are Assistant State Prosecutor Anna Noreen Devanadera and Prosecution Attorney Herbert Calvin Abugan.
The DOJ will conduct the reinvestigation following the dismissal of the charges by the investigating panel of prosecutors, which triggered massive criticisms and even earned the ire of President Duterte.
The previous panel composed of Assistant State Prosecutors Michael John Humarang and Aristotle Reyes dismissed the charges of sale, administration, dispensation, trading, delivery and transportation of illegal drugs under Republic Act 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act) against the respondents for lack of probable cause.
The prosecutors faulted the PNP-CIDG for presenting weak evidence and the “inconsistencies” in the testimony of lone witness Marcelo Adorco as reasons for dismissal of the charges.
Adorco claimed in his affidavit that Lim had supplied narcotics in “staggering amounts” to Espinosa for more than two years.
But the investigating panel held that Adorco’s claims were contrary to the “standards of human experience and the logical course of reality.”
The panel also cited as basis the complainant’s “failure to present any circumstantial evidence to prove respondents’ illegal drug transactions.”
Espinosa had confessed to being involved in the illegal drug trade, but the PNP-CIDG did not submit to the DOJ his affidavit of confession during earlier preliminary investigation.