Harriet Demetriou, the judge who sentenced convicted murderer-rapist Antonio Sanchez to seven life terms in prison, yesterday urged presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo to resign from his post, saying she believed it was likely that Panelo was involved with the plan to release the former Calauan mayor from prison.
Panelo and Sanchez have a lot of shared history. The former was one of Sanchez’s defense lawyers when he was tried for the 1993 killing of University of the Philippines Los Baños students Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez, her boyfriend.
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Panelo last week denied having anything to do with Sanchez since the early ’90s, and said he actually withdrew from the case before the 1995 conviction was handed down. He also said he no longer communicates with the convict.
Demetriou, however, isn’t buying it. “It is impossible that Panelo didn’t maneuver the decision to favor his former client, given his position in the Duterte administration,” she said in a conversation with several reporters.
“He cannot claim ignorance,” she added. “Why? He’s the defense counsel. He’s Sanchez’s lawyer.”
Read: Wait, what? Corrections chief says killer ex-mayor Sanchez might not be freed soon after all
The retired judge also urged President Rodrigo Duterte to investigate the botched plan to free Sanchez.
“I’m calling on the president to investigate the attempted release of Sanchez from prison. I know he is a fair man. He knows the drill. He knows the law,” she said. “The president should investigate who is responsible.”
Panelo was swift to smack down Demetriou’s suggestion that he resign, labeling it “silly, if not absurd.”
Read: Senator dela Rosa goes berserk over student leader’s Sanchez remark
In a statement released yesterday, the presidential spokesman said: “My office has nothing to do with the possible release of qualified inmates. That is the turf and the responsibility of the Department of Justice and the concerned offices under it. I do not intrude nor poke my finger into any matter that is not within the mandate of my office.”
Separately, Demetriou slammed Sanchez yesterday for claiming he was framed in the 1993 Sarmenta-Gomez case. In an exclusive interview with ABS-CBN News late last week, the convict said that he was set up by his political enemies and that the victims’ bodies were merely dumped by the real perpetrators in Calauan.
“Mr. Sanchez, you said a long time ago when we were trying the case that you were innocent, and you swore this over your family’s life,” the retired judge said, addressing the convict. “That’s not what it means to be innocent. Don’t use your family.”
Demetriou added that Sanchez had been given a fair trial.
“I allowed him [a] reasonable delay. The case dragged for one and a half years before I rendered the verdict of guilty against him and his six co-accused. He cannot say I railroaded his rights to due process.”
In 1993, the victims were abducted by Sanchez’s men in Los Baños with the intent of presenting Sarmenta as a “gift” to the mayor. They were then brought to Sanchez’s home in Calauan, where Gomez was tortured.
Before ordering his aides to kill the victims, Sanchez raped Sarmenta, then presented her to his henchmen, who raped the teenager as well.
Sanchez was convicted by Demetriou in 1995 to seven life sentences but benefitted from the Revised Penal Code’s rule that limited the sentence to a maximum of 40 years.
It was early last week when Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra announced that Sanchez might be released soon due to good conduct, which drew swift condemnation from opposition politicians, feminist groups, and netizens.
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