Lawyer: Conflicting affidavits show police official's innocence in kidnap-slay raps

Former Metro Manila police spokesperson Superintendent Rommel Miranda, accused of kidnapping and killing a Chinese-Filipino trader, could not have been in two places at the same time. This was the argument raised by the police official's camp in a reply-affidavit it submitted to the Department of Justice last Friday. The reply-affidavit was in response to separate affidavits earlier executed by two other suspects in the crime, PO1 Otelio Santos Jr and Jifford Signap. Miranda, Santos, and Signap were all implicated in the kidnap-slay case after a fourth suspect confessed to the crime and led investigators to a warehouse where victim Lea Ng's remains were found sealed inside a septic tank. "The statements are totally inconsistent and conflicting in the sense that the place where Santiago alleged the crime to have been committed was different from the places stated by both respondents Signanp and Santos," said Miranda's legal counsel Reynaldo Ruiz. In his extra-judicial confession, Santiago had claimed Ng was already dead by 9:30 a.m. of January 20. But Miranda refuted this and claimed in his counter-affidavit,  filed separately last Monday, that the security logbook of the coffee shop where he was supposed to meet Ng showed the woman's car entering the parking area at 10:14 a.m. "The statements of Santiago as against Signap and Santos really point to the innocence of my client as to his alleged participation in the crime," he added. Ruiz said there was a "physical impossibility" for Miranda and Ng to be in both places at the same time. Ng, 40, was abducted last Jan. 20 and was found inside a septic tank in a warehouse in San Pedro, Laguna on Feb. 23. In his confession, Santiago claimed that Miranda brought Ng's body to him so he could place them inside the septic tank. Miranda and Ng were long-time business partners. Ruiz said his client and the victim did not have a romantic relationship, adding Miranda was a victim of a demolition job, and that he was merely a "fall guy" for a crime committed by the other suspects. Ruiz said further hearings have been set for Tuesday and Wednesday next week. — LBG, GMA News