March 6, 2010. MANILA, Philippines. Fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson\u2019s lawyer believes that former police officer Michael Ray Aquino, ordered extradited by a US court, will not turn against his client.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe return of [Sr. Supt.] Michael Ray Aquino will not strengthen the case against Sen. Panfilo Lacson because he will never turn state witness against him,\u201d Atty. Alex Avisado said in a text
\n Fugitive Senator Lacson message.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark granted the request of the Philippine government to extradite Aquino in connection with the Salvador \u201cBubby\u201d Dacer-Emmanuel Corbito double murder case.<\/p>\n
Aquino, a former member of the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) is charged with conspiring with other individuals in the murder of Dacer and Corbito more than 9 years ago.<\/p>\n
Avisado said that unlike another police official, Cezar Mancao, Aquino \u201chas repeatedly turned down several tempting offers to testify against Sen. Lacson.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are confident he will not enter into a deal with a government that is already on its way out,\u201d Avisado added.<\/p>\n
‘Aquino the missing piece’<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Dacer family lawyer said Aquino\u2019s testimony is the missing piece in the case since he was the next in line to Lacson in PAOCTF.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was also present when Lacson supposedly told Mancao to get rid of Dacer. He has the most valuable and extensive information on PAOCTF\u2019s operations,\u201d said Atty. Demetrio Custodio.<\/p>\n
Lacson is facing murder charges before the Manila Regional Trial Court for allegedly masterminding the killing of the publicist and his driver.<\/p>\n
The senator has denied the charges, saying the raps were an attempt of the government to get back at him for his highly critical stance.<\/p>\n
Lacson left the country last January 5 and had reportedly visited Macau and Guangdong province in China. A source from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said Lacson left Zhuhai City in Guangdong last January 18 and drove to Macau using a rented car on the same date.
\nReports from Timi Nubla, ABS-CBN News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 6, 2010. MANILA, Philippines. Fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson\u2019s lawyer believes that former police officer Michael Ray Aquino, ordered extradited by a US court, will not turn against his client. \u201cThe return of [Sr. Supt.] Michael Ray Aquino will not strengthen the case against Sen. Panfilo Lacson because he will never turn state witness against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}