Lawyers ask court to quash Mrs. Garcia’s US immigration statements

Lawyers for the wife of retired Army Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia on Friday have asked the Sandiganbayan Second Division to quash the two statements she gave in April 2004 to US Immigration authorities on a technicality. The documents contained Mrs. Garcia’s admission that her husband received commissions and ‘gratitude money’ from military contractors and that she herself has enjoyed ‘shopping money’ stipends, business class plane tickets and first class hotel accommodations since 1993. Defense lawyers Rainier Madrid, Peter Paul Danao, and Alvin Carullo, all of the Madrid and Associates law firm, claimed neither statements of Clarita Garcia is admissible as evidence in the plunder case against her because she had no legal counsel when they were taken. Likewise, they noted that she was not advised of her rights against self-incrimination under the Miranda doctrine. “Whether taken as confession or mere admission, accused-movant Clarita Garcia’s two US Immigration Statements are for all legal intents and purposes inadmissible in evidence even at the preliminary investigation stage, or worse in existent for being void ab initio," the lawyers said. They pointed out that without the said statements the government’s plunder case does not have legs to stand. The defense explained that the plunder charge alleged conspiracy among the members of Garcia’s family but other than the two statements of Clarita Garcia, there was no other independent evidence that would prove the prosecution’s theory. It claimed that the discovery of various bank accounts, real estate properties or vehicles in the names of Mrs. Garcia and her three children, Ian Carl, Juan Paulo and Timothy Mark, did not constitute proof that they conspired with the former AFP comptroller in committing plunder. During a hearing on the case on June 1, 2005, associate Justice Rodolfo Ponferrada, noted that the bank accounts and other assets traced in the names of Gen. Garcia’s family were ‘only evidence of possession of money, not acquisition or amassing of wealth.’ Based on these arguments, the defense moved for the reversal of the court’s resolution dated February 28, 2006 which found probable cause against Garcia’s wife and children and formed the basis for the issuance of arrest warrants against them without bail. In addition, the lawyers sought dismissal of the case against the four accused.-GMANews.TV