Alleged Enzo Pastor slay mastermind wants ‘malicious’ raps dismissed

The man suspected of planning the murder of race car driver and motorsports proponent  Ferdinand “Enzo” Pastor asked the Department of Justice to dismiss the murder and frustrated murder complaints filed against him for lack of evidence.

In his 16-page counter-affidavit, Domingo “Sandy” De Guzman III said he was pinned down based only on a retracted statement of a police officer and a staged entrapment operation by the police.

PO2 Edgar Angel, in his extrajudicial confession submitted August 2014, said he was hired by De Guzman to kill Pastor in exchange for P100,000. However, in his counter-affidavit submitted to the Department of Justice on Sept. 8, he disowned his confession saying it was just a “script” written by the police.

“The ‘story’ narrated by PO2 Angel in his supposed extrajudicial confession is an imaginary episode by the police to create a malicious criminal charge against me…It must be stressed that PO2 Angel repudiated his extrajudicial confession at the first opportunity. It is not surprising that the ‘confession’ purportedly shows a detailed account of the supposed circumstances of the plot and act to kill Enzo Pastor. Obviously, the investigators/writers tailored fit it to how they would want their story to look like,” De Guzman said.

De Guzman also submitted copies of CCTV footages from Unique Autowerkes Shop, Seaoil Philippines Inc. Gasoline Station and of the Sto. Niño Village Homeowners’ Association to dispel the claims of the police officers that he was arrested in an entrapment operation when he gave a P20,000 bonus to Angel for successfully killing Pastor.

What transpired, according to De Guzman was an illegal warrantless arrest.

“I must stress that immediately after I was accosted, I was thrown in a car and was blindfolded. Inside the car, I heard a gun cock and felt it pointed at my head while the police officers repeatedly said, ‘Aminin mo na kasi na ikaw ang nagpapatay (Admit that you ordered his killing)!’ By their threats, the police officers tried to force me to admit to the killing of Enzo Pastor,” De Guzman said.

He added that even the testimony of the Pastor’s nanny, Chona Domen cannot be used to charge him with murder.

Domen, in her statement said he was having an affair with Pastor’s wife Dalia.

“If at all, her testimonies simply allege my supposed illicit affair with Dalia Pastor. Nowhere, however, does she state that I planned the killing of Enzo Pastor. A claim of illicit relationship does not constitute conspiracy to the crimes of murder (of Enzo Pastor) and frustrated murder (of Paolo Salazar, Pastor’s aide),” De Guzman said.

“It is clear that the evidence against me consist purely of bare allegations, surmises and conjectures. A fact cannot be established on the basis of surmises or conjectures. Suspicion cannot give probative force to testimony which in itself is insufficient to establish or to justify an inference of a particular fact for ‘the sea of suspicion has no shore, and the court that embarks upon it is without rudder or compass’,” De Guzman added.

On the other hand, Dalia Guerrero, wife of Pastor was still a no-show at the Department of Justice during the preliminary investigation. She is facing a complaint for parricide.

“As they say, flight means guilt. So, alam ko naming guilty talaga. Lagi na lang n’ya pinapaharap si Mr. [Xavier] Guerrero (Dalia’s father), umiiyak pa on her behalf, so, dapat naman segundahan na n’ya ang father n’ya. Kaso, talagang tumatakbo s’ya sa responsibilidad,” Pastor’s mother, Remedios, said.

(As they say, flight means guilt. So I know that she is really guilty. She always asks her father Guerrero to take the cudgels for her, even crying on her behalf, but she has to support the claims of her father. But she is running away from her responsibility.) -With report by Tetch Torres-Tupas