Council asks cops to expand probe into killing of pastor Jastiva's wife

CEBU, Philippines – Following the recent dismissal of the case filed against a pastor who was tagged in the killing of his own wife, the Cebu City Council has asked the police through a resolution to expand its probe so the real killer would be brought behind bars and justice will be given to the victim.

Councilor Edgardo Labella, the author of the resolution, said that the investigation into the killing of Judith Jastiva should be looked further as he believed that the probe is not so tight.

He said the police had filed murder charges against Judith’s husband, Pastor Leonardo Jastiva, claiming that they have proof that the latter is involved in the crime but the complaint was dismissed by the City Prosecutor’s Office.

The councilor said that while the police claimed they have strong circumstantial evidence because the text messages of the supposed abductors of the victim had been traced to Jastiva’s mobile phone, they have failed to give a theory of the possible motive of the pastor to kill his wife.

Jastiva, a pastor of the International Missionary Society of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church Reform Movement, was implicated in the death of his wife after the police found the messages of the supposed kidnappers on his own cellphone.

The pastor claimed that he was the one who received such message from the kidnappers and he forwarded it to his other cellphone before sending them to the police.

“The narrow-minded concentration of the Cebu City police on Jastiva as its only suspect in the kidnapping-murder of his wife, notwithstanding the paucity of the evidence to support its theory, has not only already resulted in the violation of Jastiva’s constitutional rights with his arrest and detention without warrant, it also raises the possibility that the real killers will never be found,” Labella said.

The councilor added that the actuations of the CCPO in the investigation of the case have given the City Council the cause to be gravely concerned because of its possible effects on the peace and order condition of the city, particularly after the police hierarchy in the region tagged the CCPO as the most crime-prone area in Central Visayas. — Rene U. Borromeo/WAB (THE FREEMAN)