Not guilty plea entered for Cedric Lee, Zimmer Raz in Vhong detention case

By AMANDA FERNANDEZ, GMA News

Published April 30, 2014 3:36pm

(Updated 5 p.m.) A Taguig court on Wednesday entered a not guilty plea on behalf of businessman Cedric Lee and Simeon "Zimmer" Raz after the two accused refused to enter any plea on the serious illegal detention case filed against them by TV host-actor Vhong Navarro.

In an interview with reporters, state prosecutor Hazel Valdez said the two were arraigned before the Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 271.

When asked if Lee's camp petitioned to defer proceedings, Valdez said yes, but the camp eventually withdrew its petition and asked to be arraigned.

The two, however, did not enter any plea, she added.

Meanwhile, the court has also set the hearing for Lee and Raz's petition for bail and motion for continuance of detention at the NBI compound on May 6, said Valdez.

Lee and Raz have been detained at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) compound in Manila since Sunday. They were arrested in Eastern Samar on Saturday and were brought to Manila the next day.

Aside from the two, model Deniece Cornejo, Ferdinand Guerrero and Sajed "Jed" Fernandez Abuhijleh are facing serious illegal detention charges, a non-bailable offense, in connection with the January 22 mauling of Navarro.

On Tuesday, Lee and Raz asked the Taguig City Regional Trial Court to grant them bail in connection with the case.

Gag order?

Meanwhile, both Lee and Raz's legal counsel, lawyer Howard Calleja, and Navarro's legal counsel, lawyer Alma Mallonga, refused to give any information regarding the arraignment.

When asked if a gag order was issued, Mallonga denied it and said the court just asked them to refrain from giving out "commentary" statements to the media.

After the arraignment, Lee and Raz were immediately brought back to the NBI compound.

"Sa NBI na sila diretso," Mallonga added.

Authorities have yet to capture the other suspects in the serious illegal detention case, a report on GMA News' Unang Balita said on Tuesday.

The report quoted authorities from the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group as saying that the suspects' camps earlier said they will surrender. As of Monday, however, no one has yielded to authorities.

Meanwhile, the same report said a suspect is still in talks with the police about the possibility of surrendering. The report did not identify the suspect. —RSJ, GMA News

Tags: cedriclee, vhongnavarro, zimmerraz