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Rights group slams military for pressuring victim to recant testimony

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Rights group slams military for pressuring victim to recant testimony


After giving a testimony regarding his abduction and torture by the military, the victim, after a few days, disappeared again only to resurface later to file a case against the NPA and a human rights group that assisted him.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Bulatlat.com

MANILA — It’s a case of he said and now-he-says-something else. A human rights victim of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has recently recanted his statements against his abductors and claimed that he was actually taken by members of the New People’s Army and a human rights group in Southern Tagalog.

“Should we ever trust the military? Lessons from the past tell us that whatever credibility it pretends to have has already gone down the drain,” Karapatan-ST said in a statement. “It’s using cheap, dirty tactics.”
This was in direct reaction to the military’s claim that 18-year old Franklin Barrera, a member of the Save Bondoc Peninsula Movement was abducted by the New People’s Army (NPA) with the help of the human rights group. Barrera made the same allegation on June 19 when he went to the Quezon police to file charges against Karapatan-ST.




Barrera was  abducted on June 7 by members of the AFP 85th Infantry Battalion and was surfaced the day after and gave an account of his abduction and the torture he suffered at the hands of his abductors to Karapatan-ST. The group also released a video where Barrera himself is seen speaking and describing his ordeal. The video has been posted and circulated in social networking sites.

Afterwards, according to reports, Barrera again went missing on June 10 and resurfaced June 19, this time filing criminal charges of kidnapping with detention against several individuals whom he said were NPA members. Barrera filed the charges against the NPA and members of Karapatan-ST at the Quezon police..... MORE

SourceBulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/06/23/rights-group-slams-military-for-pressuring-victim-to-recant-testimony/

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