Paco Larrañaga

Francisco Juan "Paco” Larrañaga (born 1977) was a Filipino convicted of murder, and sentenced to death on February 3, 2004. He, along with six others, was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the kidnapping and murder of Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong on July 16, 1997 in Cebu City, Cebu.

Prosecution

According to the prosecutors, at 10:00 p.m. on July 16, 1997, Paco and seven other defendants kidnapped the Chiong sisters near a mall on the island of Cebu in the Philippines, raped them, and then threw one of the sisters into a ravine. The other sister was never found.

The prosecutors' case against Paco depends almost entirely on the testimony of a co-defendant, David Valiente Rusia. In exchange for blanket immunity, he testified. The trial court only permitted Paco’s counsel to cross examine him for half an hour, despite the fact that Rusia’s direct testimony lasted for days. In that half hour, Paco’s counsel established that Rusia had lied to both the prosecution and the court concerning his prior convictions. Rusia had claimed he had never been convicted of crime. He has a record of burglary and forgery. Rusia fainted when confronted with this evidence. Davidson Rusia is a convicted felon and was sentenced to prison twice in the United States for other crimes. Rusia claimed that he was with Paco in Ayala Center, Cebú early in the evening of July 16, the evening Larrañaga says that he was at R&R Restaurant in Quezon City with his friends. Rusia was not known to Paco, and only appeared as a “state witness” 10 months after the event.

Defense

More than 35 witnesses, including Paco’s teachers and classmates at the Center for Culinary Arts (CCA) in Quezon City, testified under oath that he was in Metro Manila, another city, when the crime is said to have taken place in Cebu. However, the trial court considered these testimonies irrelevant. During his trial in the Cebu Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 7, defense lawyers sought to present evidence of his where abouts on the evening of the crime - that Paco, at that time 19 years old, was at a party at the R&R Restaurant along Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City, and stayed there until early morning the following day. After the party, the logbook of the security guard at Paco's condominium indicates that Paco returned to his Quezon City condominium at 2:45 a.m. Many other witnesses, classmates and companions at the R&R restaurant, were not allowed to testify.

Rowena Bautista, an instructor and chef at the culinary center, said Paco was in school from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and saw him again at about 6:30 p.m on July 16. The school’s registrar, Caroline Calleja, said she proctored a two-hour exam where Paco was present from 1:30 p.m. Paco attended his second round of midterm exams on July 17 commencing at 8 a.m. Only then did Paco leave for Cebu in the late afternoon of July 17, 1997.

Airline and airport personnel also came to court with their flight records, indicating that Paco did not take any flight on July 16, 1997, nor was he on board any chartered aircraft that landed in or departed from Cebu during the relevant dates, except the 5 p.m. PAL flight on July 17, 1997 from Manila to Cebu.

Larrañaga's counsels Felicitas Aquino Arroyo and Sandra Marie Olaso Coronel urged the high court to admit the "amicus curiae" from the Basque Bar Council (BBC), Barcelona Bar Associations (BBA) and Bar Association of Madrid. The three organizations expressed their interests in the case of Larrañaga since he was a "Spanish citizen with origins in the Basque Country, and therefore a member of the European Union." The BBA mentioned that the execution of a Spanish citizen would be in breach of the violation of the principle of reciprocity in international law, noting that if a Filipino citizen is found guilty in Spain, no Spanish court would have imposed the death penalty, nor would have allowed him extradited to any country imposing capital punishment. (The EU itself forbids capital punishment and its abolition is a requirement for any applicant state.) Former Ambassador Sedfrey Ordóñez claims he is the victim of a mistrial.

Fair Trials Abroad, an NGO working on behalf of EU citizens who face a miscarriage of justice, entered an Amicus brief which was submitted to the Supreme Court by the European Commission's Manila delegate. The Amicus argued that under both international and Philippine law, Paco had been the subject of an unfair trial and had never been given the opportunity to show his innocence. FTA has since represented Paco before the United Nations, appealing against injustice in the Philippines. Sarah de Mas, spokesperson for FTA who brought the case to the attention of the European Parliament and successive presidencies of the European Union, stated that Paco had served a lengthy sentence for a crime he could not have committed.

Philippine-Spanish Treaty

On December 3, 2007, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos stated that Spain will be “happy” if dual Spanish-Filipino citizen Francisco “Paco” Larranaga spends his life sentence in a jail "here" as the Treaty on the Exchange of Sentenced Persons comes into force: “We don’t know when this will happen. We have no time period. We feel happy that Mr. Larranaga can come back with this treaty.” The treaty, which will allow convicted persons of either country to return to his home country and spend his sentence there, was ratified by the Philippines -- 17 affirmative and two abstentions -- on November 26.

Larranaga is the son of former Basque Pelotari Manuel Larrañaga and Filipino Margarita Gonzalez, and is a member of the influential Osmeña clan of Cebu. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said that, "Larranaga's case could be covered by the treaty only if the Supreme Court issued a final ruling on his conviction, which remained on appeal before the high tribunal". [ [http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view_article.php?article_id=104750 Inquirer.net, Spaniard might be first beneficiary in prisons exchange pact] ]

References

External links

* [http://framedinthephilippines.com/html/aaPart%2002.htm Framed in the Philippines , Rusia]
* [http://www.eitb24.com/noticia_en.php?id=45040] Dead link|date=August 2007
* [http://www.fairtrialsabroad.org/ Fair Trials International: Home]
* [http://www.hazteoir.org/node/422 Pide un juicio justo para Paco Larrañaga, español condenado a muerte en Filipinas | HazteOir.org]