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By Francis Earl Cueto, Reporter
THE Department of Foreign Affairs
will extend legal assistance to the seven Filipinos who were
convicted by a Jeddah court of killing fellow nationals last year.
Three of these convicts will be
hanged, the department said.
Claro Cristobal, spokesman for
the department, said that as a rule of thumb, the department would
extend all types of assistance to Filipinos abroad, whether it is
legal assistance or financial aid if the need arises.
He said that they would also
assist families of the convicts and the victims, but did not
elaborate on what kind of assistance the department would provide.
A Jeddah court on Tuesday found
Eduardo Arcilla and siblings Edison and Rolando Gonzales, all from
Pampanga, guilty of killing and then chopping the body of Filipinos
Reno Lumbang, Jeremias Bucod and Dante Rivero in April last year.
Saudi police arrested them last April.
The convicts’
accomplices—Omar Basilio, Joel Sinambang, Efren Dimahon and Victor
Alfonso—all from Pampanga—were each given eight-year jail
terms for participating in the crime.
Aside from the jail terms, the
accomplices would also receive 1,000 lashings each as part of their
punishment.
Investigators said illegal
gambling was behind the murders. Arcilla and the Gonzales siblings
denied killing the victims.
The convicts might be saved from
death if they apologize to the victims’ families and pay them with
“blood money.”
They will face court again to be
told of their sentences and will be given 30 days to appeal.
Cristobal said it would normally
take the Saudi appellate court 8 to 12 months to decide to reverse
or uphold the lower court’s ruling. He added that if the appellate
court affirms the decision, Philippine authorities would bring the
Filipinos’ case to the kingdom’s Supreme Court.
He said the three Filipinos were
among the 32 Filipino workers in different parts of the globe facing
a death sentence. Their convictions are either under appeal, or they
are on death row.
The Saudi convictions followed a
Kuwaiti court’s ruling on a Filipino who was sentenced to die by
hanging for murdering her employer’s six-year-old child on January
6.
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