Carl shot while kneeling — medicolegal officer

MANILA, Philippines — A medicolegal officer from the Northern Police District testified on Friday during the murder trial of former University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman student Carl Angelo Arnaiz about the teenager’s five bullet wounds, all of which proved fatal and were shot at close range while the victim was kneeling down.

Chief Inspector Jocelyn Padilla Cruz took the witness stand before the Navotas Regional Trial Court Branch 287 and detailed the results of the autopsy she conducted on the teenager, who was killed in a police operation following an alleged robbery in Caloocan last August 2017.

She said Arnaiz bore abrasions in the arm that indicated he was handcuffed, and contusions around the eye that indicated he was beaten up.

All the five gunshot wounds he sustained mostly in the chest were fatal, and these were shot while Arnaiz was in a lower position, the witness said.

When Judge Romana Maria Melchora Lindayag-del Rosario asked if it is likely Arnaiz was kneeling down, the medicolegal officer said it is “possible.”

This bolsters the testimony of eyewitness “Joe Daniel,” who earlier testified that he saw Arnaiz kneeling and begging for mercy at a grassy area in Dagat-Dagatan, Navotas where he was shot by police officers on the night of Aug. 18, 2017.

Even though the body was embalmed when the autopsy was conducted, the medicolegal said the bullet wounds appeared to have been inflicted when the victim was alive.

Arnaiz’s mother Eva on Friday expressed relief the case has resumed. The murder case had been delayed for months since being refiled at the Navotas court when it was dismissed by the Caloocan regional trial court for lack of jurisdiction.

Eva earlier told The STAR that just a few days before her son’s death anniversary, she dreamed that Carl was silently crying, worried about the progress of his case.

The case refiled at the Navotas court only began its first trial date on Aug. 10.

Meanwhile, the torture and planting of evidence cases which remained at the Caloocan trial court are stalled in the absence of a new judge. Then presiding judge Georgina Hidalgo hearing the case was promoted to the Sandiganbayan.

The judge ordered the Philippine National Police to comment on the defense counsel’s request to subpoena another autopsy report, this time on Arnaiz’s companion 14-year-old Reynaldo “Kulot” de Guzman, whose body was found riddled with stab wounds and floating in a river in Nueva Ecija. The police alleged the body was not Kulot’s.

Police Officers 1 Ricky Arquilita and Jefrey Perez had sought the Caloocan court’s leave to dismiss the torture and planting of evidence cases on demurrer to evidence.

Carl was a former UP Diliman student who had to take a break after a semester in his first year to undergo treatment for depression.