Illegal arrest sets man free

Regional Trial Court judge Gabriel Ingles yesterday ordered the immediate release of a suspected drug pusher who has been detained for the past two years after it was proven that policemen illegally arrested him.

Both P03 Manuel Sarmiento and SP02 Benjamin Genson Jr. admitted before the court that they were not sure if the plastic pack with white powder they seized from Nelson Noel on August 6, 2003 was really shabu.

Sarmiento and Genson testified before the court that they went to Sikatuna Riverside at barangay T. Padilla to follow-up on a robbery case involving a certain Dodong Agre, but saw Noel and his companion Danilo Lumapay.

Noel said while he was walking at 2 a.m., they met two men who later identified themselves as policemen who frisked them after they were suspected as robbers and that nothing was seized from them.

But the policemen insisted that they seized a pack of shabu from Noel and arrested him while they found nothing on Lumapay and released him.

Crime lab medical technologist Jude Mendoza testified in court that the powder reportedly seized from Noel was shabu.

But judge Ingles said to justify a warrantless arrest law enforcers "must be personally aware of the commission of such crime."

"In other words the arrest cannot be merely founded on mere suspicion that the accused is endangered in some felonious activity. There must be at least knowledge of probable cause to justify the warrantless arrest," said Ingles.

The rules of court allow a person to be arrested even without a warrant of arrest if "he has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense." - Rene U. Borromeo