Marcos Pressure in Ver’s Trial Cited

The chief prosecutor of the 26 defendants acquitted last December of involvement in the assassination of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. said Wednesday that former President Ferdinand E. Marcos put pressure on the court to dismiss the charges.

According to the Philippine News Agency, Manuel Herrera said Marcos summoned him, his supervisor and one of the three judges to the presidential palace a few days before the trial began in February, 1985.

He said Marcos told them “it could be bloody” if they pursued the case against Gen. Fabian C. Ver, the armed forces chief of staff, and 25 others accused of involvement in the murder of the husband of Corazon Aquino, now president of the Philippines. Also present, Herrera said, were his boss, Bernardo Fernandez, and Judge Manuel Pamaran, who signed the verdict when the 26 were acquitted.

Herrera said they were told by Marcos to “just play-act.”

The news agency quoted Fernandez as saying: “I resisted this pressure (from Marcos) and filed the case just the same,” although he reduced the counts against Ver and Maj. Gen. Prospero Olivas, Metropolitan Manila police chief, to accessory charges.

Charges by Commission

The charges were filed after a citizens’ fact-finding commission reluctantly appointed by Marcos and headed by retired appellate Justice Corazon J. Agrava declared that Aquino and Rolando Galman, accused by military officials of assassinating Aquino, died at the hands of the military.

The two were killed Aug. 21, 1983, in a hail of gunfire at Manila International Airport, as Aquino returned to the Philippines after three years of exile in the United States. Military officials said Galman was killed after he shot Aquino. But the opposition asserted that Galman was set up to take the blame after a soldier assassinated Aquino.

After Ver and the other defendants were acquitted, Marcos reappointed him as head of the armed forces. Ver is now with Marcos in Honolulu.