The Diplomat
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee has urged the Government to request the Philippine authorities to detain three police officers accused of the death of Spanish citizen Diego Bello Lafuente, who died in the Philippines on January 8, 2020.
Diego Bello, a 32-year-old citizen of A Coruña, died after being shot six times by Philippine police officers on the Philippine island of Siargao. The Philippine authorities assured that the death had occurred “in self-defense” because Bello had fired at the time he was arrested for trafficking high-value drugs, but a toxicology report carried out at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Madrid, at the request of the National Court, ruled out that Diego had consumed any type of narcotics at least in the eight months prior to his death and showed that he had not fired any shots, as no traces of gunpowder were found on his hands.
Last March, the Philippine judiciary ordered the arrest of three policemen implicated in Bello’s death on charges of murder and tampering with evidence. However, the accused officers remain at large. For this reason, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee approved last November 2, with 13 votes in favor and 15 abstentions, a motion of the Popular Parliamentary Group in the Senate urging the Government to request the Government of the Philippines, as well as its police authorities, “to comply with the order of the Court hearing this case and to proceed with the arrest and surrender of the three policemen accused of the death of the Spaniard who died in the Philippines on January 8, 2020 and to place them at the disposal of the courts”. The fifteen abstentions were from the Socialist Group, which, although it was “98.9% in agreement” with the proposal, argued that “a sovereign government cannot interfere in the judicial system of another sovereign government, whether we agree or disagree with them”.
According to the approved motion, at least one of the shots that Bello received “was fired at close range and when Diego’s body was already lying on the ground.” “The previous autopsy performed in the Philippines at the request of the family, the CHR and the Embassy of Spain coincides in that same conclusion,” it continues. “On the other hand, the images of the security cameras of his premises show that moments before returning home he was not carrying a weapon, nor a backpack or fanny pack to hide it in,” it adds. On the other hand, both the testimonies of the witnesses and the forensic report carried out in Spain and the investigation carried out by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) “raise doubts about the circumstances in which his death took place” and, in fact, the CHR report states that “everything points to a summary execution”.
Diego Bello, recalls the Popular Group, “had no criminal record nor had he been involved in any incident related to the purchase, sale or consumption of narcotics during his residence in countries as different as Spain, United Kingdom, Thailand, Australia, Honduras or the Philippines” and neither “has it been proven that he was carrying drugs or any weapon at the time he was shot”. “Those who knew him emphasize his healthy and sporty lifestyle and his entrepreneurial character, which led him to found and successfully develop five companies in the Philippines, his last country of residence,” adds the Popular Group.
Initially, the PP motion (drafted in December 2020) urged the Government to demand from the Philippines “an impartial investigation to clarify the circumstances of the death of Diego Bello Lafuente, determining the identity and whereabouts of the alleged perpetrators of the shooting and establishing precautionary measures to prevent their possible escape before a possible trial” and to request from Manila “all the judicial documentation it may have” on the case.
However, after learning of the accusation and the lack of proceedings against the three agents, the Popular Group itself introduced a modification amendment last October 31 that reduces the text to a single request: “The Foreign Affairs Committee urges the Government, for the sake of the relationship of friendship and diplomatic cooperation between our countries, and in application of the Treaty on Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters signed between the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of the Philippines in Manila on March 2, 2004 (…. ), request the Government of the Philippines, as well as its police authorities, to comply with the order of the Court hearing this case and to proceed with the arrest and surrender of the three policemen accused of the death of the Spaniard who died in the Philippines on January 8, 2020 and to place them at the disposal of the courts”.
