By LITO RULONA,
Correspondent
The Regional Prosecutor’s Office (RPO) has called for the death penalty to be re-introduced in the case of Australian Peter Scully who is facing child sex abuse and human trafficking charges in a local court here.
RSP chief prosecutor Jaime Umpa said that 52 year-old child predator crime was the most shocking case of child abuse and trafficking to have happened in northern Mindanao and nearby provinces.
“Scully must rot in jail. Kung puwede dili na gyud siya makabuhi,” he said.
Umpa called for the reintroduction of the death penalty in the Philippines so that Scully, a businessman from Melbourne, could be executed.
“If I had my choice it would be death for Scully. I want it to happen,” he said.
He said the present administration of President Rodrigo Duterte should send a strong message to others that if they come to the Philippines and torture and abuse children they will be investigated with the full force of the law and executed.
Umpa said unless the death penalty is reintroduced prosecutors would push in the first hearings for Scully to be given the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for human trafficking and 10 years for each of the five sexual abuse charges, meaning Scully could be jailed for up to 100 years.
But under current laws, he would be released after serving 30 years and then deported to Australia.
“We don’t believe this is sufficient for these crimes that were committed,” Umpa said.
He said if he will be allowed to lobby before the House of Congress to re-introduced death penalty then he would do so and start with the case of Scully.
Last week, Scully was presented in court and faced the first six of 75 charges filed against him. Umpa said Scully could become the first person to received the death penalty in the Philippines in more than a decade.
During the hearing last week, the panel of prosecutor’s alleged that Scully directed a video involving torture and horrific injuries to an 18-month-old baby.
They alleged that Scully for several years the mastermind of a worldwide syndicate selling extreme videos of child sex and torture.
Prosecutors also alleged that another 11-year-old girl whose body was found in a shallow grave under a house rented by Scully was repeatedly sexually abused by him and then strangled
Eight other girl victims aged up to 13 at the time of the alleged offences are being held in witness protection while Scully pleads not guilty.
Legal counsel of Scully led by Atty. Adonis Gumahad decided to contest the charges in court saying they are still awaiting other details of the charges.
“They were the most devastating thing I have ever seen. Dili ko kaantus og tan-aw sa video unsa ilang gihimo sa mga bata. Makahilak ko,” said panel of prosecutor head Ruby Malanog.
She said she could not believe what she was seeing that somebody could do those things to children.
The first six charges that Scully will face relate to the alleged abduction and sexual abuse of two teenage girls in Cagayan de Oro in September 2014.
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