Relatives of three Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao members accused along with Ilog Mayor John Paul Alvarez and three others for the murder of Kabankalan Regional Trial Court Judge Henry Arles, are mulling the filing of kidnapping charges against the National Bureau of Investigation and the Arles family, Alan Gozon said yesterday.

Gozon, vice chairman of the Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, said Jessie Gedacan Daguia, Alejandro Castillo Capunong and Eddie Magno Fotunado who are now under NBI custody in Manila were illegally detained and tortured into admitting participation in Arles murder.

He said they are asking that the three be brought back to Negros where the preliminary investigation into their alleged involvement in the killing of Arles should be held.

Gozon said he was also informed that their co-accused, Marvin Salve, also of the RPA-ABB, has denied involvement in the slay of the judge.

Capunong and Daguia were arrested on June 22 in Bacolod City but cases filed against them for illegal possession of firearms were not filed within 36 hours from the time of their arrest, he said.

Gozon also noted that no case was filed against Fortunado.

If no case was filed against them within 36 hours from their arrests, their continued stay at the NBI after that was illegal detention, Gozon claimed.

Documents he presented showed the NBI's complaint against the two for illegal gun possession dated June 25 was received by the prosecutor's office on June 26.

Bacolod Prosecutor Armando Abanado approved in a July 17 resolution the filling of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition raps against the two before the court, taking into the consideration the uncontroverted evidence submitted by the NBI.

The prosecutor's office filed two cases for illegal possession of firearms against the two dated July 17 but received by the Regional Trial Court in Bacolod on July 25, with bail recommended at P80,000 each.

The NBI said the two were arrested based on information that members of an armed group operating in the south were coming to Bacolod to launch an assassination against an unspecified target.

With Gozon at a press conference at the Negros Press Club were Daguia's brother Nestor and sister Ofelia, Capunong's wife Joan and mother Jenelyn, and Fortunado's mother, Tessa.

They presented a letter allegedly from Daguia and Capunong dated July 27 saying that they were being held at the NBI jail at Taft Avenue.

In the letter they said they were beaten and electrocuted into admitting that they had a part in the Arles slay and hidden from their families.

They also appealed for help.

The relatives of the three insisted that they are innocent of the charges filed against them and called for justice for them.

Arles was shot dead in Barangay Manalad, Ilog, at about 6:30 p.m. on April 24 while he was driving home.

Daguia, Capunong and Fotunado in media interviews at the NBI Bacolod office on July 10 had said they had sought NBI protective custody because they feared for their lives.

Daguia, alias Dodoy, 40, of Barangay Tampalon, Kabankalan, admitted having shot the judge three times with a .45 caliber pistol in the interview.

Capunong, 27, of Barangay Tabu, Ilog, said he drove the tricycle that blocked the vehicle of the judge to allow the assassins to shoot him.

Fortunado, 23, of Barangay Tampalon, Kabankalan, said he was with Marvin Salve when the latter met with Mayor Alvarez and he later learned that the judge was to be assassinated.

On the night the judge was murdered, he said he was on the tricycle that blocked Arles' car.

Lawyer Frank Britancio, brother-in-law of Arles, said they will prove that there were no such things as torture illegal detention and kidnapping as claimed by Gozon and his companions.

The family of the three RPA-ABB men have every right to file their kidnapping charges but it will only prove that they do not want the truth to come out, Britanco said.

They want to put the Arles family and the NBI on the defensive. The RPA-ABB is not sincere in saying that it will conduct an investigation into the charges against its members to get to the truth, he said.

What it is doing is conducting an investigation to try to get its members off the hook, he said.

The Arles family is set to hold a press conference today presumably to rebut the statements made by Gozon's group.*CPG

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