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Death
for killer of UST student
By
GUILLERMO DE LOS SANTOS
TODAY Reporter | April 1, 2004
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=Metro&oid=48166
The
Manila Regional Trial Court meted out Wednesday the death
sentence on one of the accused in the brutal killing of a
University of Santo Tomas engineering student in 2001.
In
his 71-page decision, Judge Romulo Lopez of RTC Branch 18
sentenced Arnulfo Aparri Jr. to die by lethal injection.
The
court also ordered Aparri to pay the victim’s family,
Mark Welson Chua, P50,000 in damages.
The
three other accused, Paul Joseph Tan, Eduardo Tabrilla and
Michael Von Rainard Managbao, who are still at large, were
all sentenced in absentia.
The
body of Chua was found stuffed inside a carpet floating on
the Pasig River at the back of the National Press Club on
March 18, 2001, around 9:15 a.m.
Based
on the National Bureau of Investigation’s findings, Chua
was tortured by the accused.
Chua
was killed after he exposed several anomalous deals of the
accused on the ROTC training programs at the university where
Apari was the commanding officer.
Chua,
a mechanical engineering student, was last seen on the night
of March 15 in the company of the accused inside the department
of military and service training building of the university.
Aparri’s
surrender to the police did not deter the court’s decision
in sentencing him to the gallows as it said: “This court
cannot do otherwise than to appreciate the same voluntary
surrender as mitigating circumstance in the accused favor.
However, treachery is not offset by such mitigating circumstance.”
The
court added: “Aparri is hereby found guilty of the crime
of murder charged in the information with the qualifying circumstance
of treachery, evident premeditation and abuse of superior
strength with the attendant aggravating circumstance of cruelty
and night time especially sought for that purpose.”
Chua
had exposed irregularities at the ROTC, which eventually led
to the dismissal of its commandant, Demy Tejares, of the Army
reserve command.
Tejares
was sacked after Chua came out with his exposé in the
school’s paper. Among the alleged anomalies was the extortion
racket involving Tejares and some of his officials in exchange
for giving passing grades to cadets.
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