Aquino Death Inquiry Will Be Reopened

A newly created human rights commission said today that it will reopen an inquiry into the 1983 murder of President Corazon Aquino’s husband, opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., because new evidence has been discovered.

Jose Diokno, the head of the commission and a prominent criminal lawyer, said he will also investigate charges that the judges and prosecution colluded to produce acquittals in the trial of 26 people on charges connected with the murder.

One of the prosecutors said last month that the judges and the prosecution were pressured by Marcos.

Diokno would not reveal the nature of the newly discovered evidence, but he said it was offered by lawyers who took part in the trial.

Military chief Fabian C. Ver, now in exile with ousted President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was acquitted in December, 1985, as were the 25 other defendants.

Aquino’s murder at Manila airport on return from self-exile in the United States was the spark that lit the people’s rebellion that, with the help of military officers, forced Marcos to flee last month after 20 years of iron rule.

Diokno also announced today that the human rights commission will investigate reports of mass graves that are believed to contain foes of Marcos or his cronies.

Diokno said his committee has received reports that the graves may hold remains of some of the more than 500 people believed abducted by the military or by private troops of provincial strongmen.

Diokno himself was jailed for two years in the early 1970s by Marcos.

“We believe most mass graves are near the ‘safehouses’ (where political dissidents were said to have been interrogated or tortured). But we don’t know where the safehouses are,” Diokno said.

“Of the five or six hundred people who disappeared, we believe at least 90% are dead” and are buried in these graves or others.

Diokno said some military commanders and local warlords have not stopped abusing human rights.

“Human rights violations continue. We haven’t enough evidence to comment on it yet, but there is preliminary evidence of such violations,” Diokno said.

In a related development, Vice President Salvador Laurel said he and Aquino are targets of assassin squads employed by Marcos.

“We are supposed to be eliminated,” he told United Press International in an interview.