US Marines face grim jail if moved to Philippine custody

Yahoo! News

Four U.S. Marines charged with raping a Filipino woman may be held in a rundown, overcrowded city jail if they are moved from American to Philippine custody while awaiting trial.

Washington has yet to respond publicly to a request by the Philippines for the transfer of the men, but prosecutors filed rape charges against them on Tuesday and plan to get arrest warrants early in the new year.

The United States is likely to invoke the Visiting Forces Agreement between the two allies to keep the accused Marines in

U.S. embassy custody, but prosecutors have said the Philippine courts could exert their jurisdiction.

As the custody issue is debated, the high walls, barbed wire and spartan life of the jail in Olongapo City, northwest of Manila, may await the Americans.

"Our facility in Olongapo is congested. That is the problem that besets our jails."

Built for 150 suspects moving through a notoriously slow justice system, the Olongapo City jail houses more than 500


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Indymedia

We in the Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) condemn in the strongest possible terms the recent gang-rape of a 22-year-old Filipina by six US Marine servicemen in Subic, Zambales. The perpetrators of this unthinkably bestial act – Keith Silkwood, Daniel Smith, Albert Lara, Dominic Duplantis, Corey Barris and Chad Carpenter – have been stationed in Subic for the past few months as participants in the joint US-RP military exercises in the former American naval base.

Based on initial findings from Subic police, the victim was visiting a karaoke bar Nov. 1 when she met the six American servicemen, who pretended to befriend her and invited her to go with them in a rented van. A few hours later, witnesses said, the young woman was seen being dumped unconscious from a van on the road.

We likewise condemn President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her deafening silence on this atrocity against the dignity of a Filipina.


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