Ampatuan lawyers doubt SOCO sketches of massacre

Defense lawyers on Wednesday questioned the sketches made by agents of the Scene of the Crime Operative (SOCO) following the Maguindanao massacre on Nov. 23, 2009, citing discrepancies in the way the sketches were made. After Danny Fortaleza, a member of the SOCO team who was one of the first to reach the crime scene, presented his sketches to the Quezon City court hearing the case, defense lawyers took turns to point out glaring differences in Fortaleza's documents. Atty. Andres Manuel Jr. pointed out that there were inconsistencies with Fortaleza’s rough sketches compared with the final computerized print-out, which was used to file the case against the suspects. In particular, he pointed out certain locations of bodies in one of the vehicles in Fortaleza's sketches, which he said do not actually reflect the positions of the victims' bodies. "It is clear that there is inconsistency in the testimony of the witness," he said. Fortaleza, for his part, said there were just no arrows pointing to the original location of the bodies in the finalized sketch, which were present in his rough sketch. 601st Brigade Manuel likewise questioned Fortaleza about the members of the 601st Brigade whom the latter said were already at the crime scene prior to the arrival of the SOCO team. In particular, the defense lawyer asked if Fortaleza saw what kind of guns the members of the brigade had on them. "Hindi ko po masabi kung anong klase, basta po mahaba," Fortaleza responded. Fortaleza said he wasn't able to check the guns the following morning since it wasn't his job to do so. But Manuel said that given the witness' background as a SOCO member and Philippine National Police officer, he should be familiar with firearms. "May alam lang po ako sa ibang klase ng baril," Fortaleza explained. Manuel then asked if it was possible if the guns were either M16 or M14 rifles, but the witness said he still wasn't sure what kind of guns they were. In November 2009, investigators were able to recover 126 spent M16 shells and three spent M14 or AK47 shells in the crime scene of the Maguindanao massacre. Only four of the 284 guns seized by authorities from the Ampatuans' private army were positively linked to the Nov. 23 massacre. — VS, GMA News