Ampatuan lawyers fail to gag medico-legal expert

Ampatuan defense lawyers on Wednesday failed to prevent a medico-legal expert of the Philippine National Police (PNP) from standing as an expert witness in the high-profile multiple murder being tried by a Quezon City court, despite their efforts to question his credibility. The prosecution on Wednesday presented Chief Inspector Felino Brunia Jr., a medico-legal expert from the PNP Crime Laboratory, as its third expert witness since trial proper began in September 2010. Brunia had conducted an autopsy on the bodies of 14 of the 57 victims of the November 23, 2009 massacre in Maguindanao. But before Brunia could speak in court, defense lawyers questioned his credibility as a medical expert by pointing out inconsistencies in his curriculum vitae. Defense lawyer Sigfrid Fortun, legal counsel for Andal Ampatuan Jr. and Sr., pointed out there were some details missing in Brunia's curriculum vitae, including information that he has had medico-legal training with the PNP Crime Lab from 2004 to 2006. Brunia said he just forgot to put that detail and said he prepared it almost three months ago already. When Fortun asked Brunia if he wanted to correct and update his curriculim vitae, the latter smiled and said there was no need to do that. Fortun took the opportunity to chide Brunia for not giving weight to the need to “correct details on his curriculum vitae." "Despite his training, it seems he has a very limited exposure to medico-legal work," Fortun added. Fortun also assailed Brunia's admission that in cases where he testified, he was not aware whether or not his expert testimony led to convictions. Another defense lawyer, Paris Real, stressed that Brunia should not be considered an expert witness after the latter admitted not being knowledgeable in some medical disciplines like forensics entomology, forensics anthropology, and biochemistry among others. Real also said he wondered why Brunia has been asked to testify in court only 14 times, despite having conducted 2,451 autopsies — half of them involving shooting. Defense lawyers also pounced on Brunia’s admission that there were no set of standards being observed to become a PNP medico-legal expert. Even medical books that Brunia claimed to have been using as references for his practice of medico-legal procedures were quite outdated, the defense lawyers said. They also pointed out Brunia's difficulty in naming any online medical resource materials that he had read, except for one website, which Fortun said "we are not even able to check its validity now here in court." "Brunia seems to be not in tune with what is current and what is the [current] trend... What he knows is archaic," Fortun said. But Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the QC Regional Trial Court gave more weight to the fact that Brunia had testified in court at least a dozen times. Solis-Reyes eventually declared the medico-legal doctor as an expert witness in the case, even as the defense lawyers manifested their objection to the court’s ruling. In his testimony, Brunia said he autopsied the bodies of 14 massacre victims from November 25 to 26 in Koronadal City. Even before he could go into further details of his autopsy, however, the prosecution moved to suspend the hearing due to the late hour. With no objection from the defense, the court agreed to continue the proceedings on Thursday at 9 a.m.—JV, GMA News