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New York judge stops Glenn Dumlao’s extradition to RP


NEW YORK – Not so fast! Former Philippine Senior Superintendent Glenn Galapon Dumlao told this to a team of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents ready to fetch him from his detention center in California when he managed to secure a court order stopping his extradition to the Philippines. Dumlao re-affirmed his second affidavit, denying the first where he incriminated himself and his former superiors - including Senior Police Superintendent Michael Ray B. Aquino, General-turned Sen. Panfilo Lacson and President Joseph Estrada as part of the conspiracy - in the kidnapping and killing of publicist Salvador “Bubby" Dacer and Dacer’s driver, Emmanuel Corbito. In a court order issued March 16, Judge Thomas Platt of the Eastern District Court of New York granted Dumlao’s motion to stay his extradition, according to Dumlao’s lawyer Felix G. Vinluan. In his motion, Dumlao told Platt that he was physically and psychologically tortured by Philippine security officers to implicate other people in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case, and that he feared a repeat of his ordeal upon his return. Cancellation downplayed Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez downplayed the cancellation of Dumlao’s extradition order. “Dumlao is not in contact with us anyway so we don’t know what he will say if he will come here," Gonzalez told GMANews.TV on Friday in a telephone interview. Two top officials from the NBI were sent to the US last Monday to bring back Dumlao to the Philippines. But they were informed that Dumlao’s motion of stay had been granted. Vinluan, who is representing Dumlao in his Motion to Stay, raised two arguments. First, the United States is barred from extraditing an individual if there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subject to torture. This is based on the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (FARR Act), which implements Article 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture. Vinluan also noted that the Philippine Department of Justice prosecutors had “willfully misrepresented the Soberano versus People decision." In this case, “Dumlao was ‘re-included’ as an accused when in fact he was already ‘excluded’ as an accused by virtue of the Supreme Court decision." Second, Vinluan said, his client has been detained more than two calendar months after Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson of the US District Court of the Eastern District of New York issued Dumlao's Certificate of Extradition dated December 10, 2008. A Warrant of Surrender has also been issued by the US Department of State on February 26, 2009. “Under 18 USC. 3188, he [Dumlao] has to be conveyed out of the country within two calendar months. But this did not happen," noted Vinluan. “So we contend that the writ of habeas corpus lies," the lawyer said. Not as an accused Vinluan said “Glenn continues to express his willingness to talk about what he knows about the Dacer-Corbito case. But not under the circumstances by which the Philippine prosecution had re-included him as an accused, [even] when the Philippine Supreme Court already had already excluded him...." Vinluan also claims the Philippine prosecution officers “railroaded the issuance of a warrant for his [Dumlao] arrest, even if they knew about the Supreme Court decision." “Glenn’s Philippine-based lawyer (in the Dacer case) had just confirmed to me that he was never notified about any prosecution request to have him testify in the case yet. And yet, they misled the Regional Trial Court to issue the warrant of arrest, which served as the basis for their request for extradition." Vinluan dismissed reports from a Philippine newspaper that Dumlao filed a $100,000 cash bond in filing the motion, saying his client paid only US$5 filing fee. Dumlao, along with Cezar Mancao and Michael Ray Aquino, left the Philippines in 2001 almost a year after they were implicated in the Dacer-Corbito case. Mancao and Aquino, are also subject to extradition. The initial nine-page hand-written affidavit Dumlao signed in the presence of Nilo A. Penaflor, Assistant Prosecution Attorney in Quezon City in the Philippines on June 14, 2001, that "between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 24, 2000, while I was talking to, C1 and P/Supt. Mancao, I received a text message from P/Supt. (Michael Ray B.) Aquino, which read: Nakuha na si Delta. They got Delta (Dacer). Paki T.I. mo siya (please conduct tactical interrogation) coordinate with 19 (referring to C/Insp. Vicente Arnado). Huwag kang magdala ng tao mo taga Bicol. (Don’t take men from Bicol). I immediately told P/SSupt. Mancao and asked him: Ano sir? (What now, sir?’ He (Mancao) answered, “Sige, puntahan mo na. I-update mo ako ng resulta ng T.I. mo. (Go ahead, go. Update me on the result of your tactical interrogation." In a subsequent four-page affidavit he swore to before Assistant City Prosecutor Cesar C. Glorioso in Manila in the Philippines on May 20, 2003, Dumlao said it was CIS Armed Forces of the Philippines Col. Victor Corpus, who told him, “Okay, aminin mo na ang pagpatay kay Dacer at Corbito, kay Gemma Sorronda at magtestigo ka sa KB (Kuratong Baleleng) para magkaintindihan tayo. [Okay, confess that you had a hand in the killing of Dacer and Corbito and Gemma Sorronda and testify for the Kuratong Baleleng case so we will understand each other.] Ituro mo si (then Gen. Panfilo) Lacson ang nag-utos. [Specify that it was Lacson who issued the order.] Dumlao said, “I am executing this affidavit to prove the threats and intimidation applied on my person in forcing me to sign fabricated affidavits, including the handwritten affidavit dated 12 June 2001, and to belie the statements contained therein." - GMANews.TV

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