After 13 years, convicted killer Claudio Teehankee Jr. was released from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City last week.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez on Monday said President Arroyo has approved the granting of executive clemency to Teehankee by virtue of a letter dated October 2 to the Office of the NBP Director. Gonzalez said Teehankee walked a free man last October 2 for “good behavior.” He has been detained since 1991 for the murder of Roland John Chapman and Swedish-Filipino Maureen Hultman.
Teehankee is the son of the late former Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee Sr and brother of former Justice Undersecretary Manuel Teehankee, an Arroyo appointee. He was convicted in 1995 and was sentenced to one count of reclusion perpetua and one count of reclusion temporal, which carry a jail term of 20 to 40 years and 12 to 20 years, respectively.
“The President considered his (Teehankee) good behavior as enough reason to grant him clemency,” Gonzalez said.
The Hultman-Chapman murder case was a case that gained wide publicity in the country during the early 1990's. This is due to the fact that Claudio Teehankee, Jr., the perpetrator of the crime, was the son of the late former Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee, Sr. and the brother of former Justice Undersecretary Manuel Teehankee. The case helped sway the public view on crime and restore the death penalty in the Philippines.
Court records show that Chapman, Hultman, and another friend, Jussi Leino, were coming home from a party at around three o'clock in the morning of July 13, 1991. Leino was walking Hultman home along Mahogany street in Dasmariñas Village, Makati City when Teehankee came up behind them in his car. He stopped the two and demanded that they show some identification. Leino took out his wallet and showed Teehankee his Asian Development Bank ID. Teehankee grabbed the wallet. Chapman, who was waiting in a car for Leino, stepped in and asked Teehankee: “Why are you bothering us?” Teehankee drew out his gun and shot Chapman in the chest, killing him instantly. After a few minutes, Teehankee shot Leino, hitting him in the jaw. Then he shot Hultman on the temple before driving away. Leino survived and Hultman died two months later in hospital due to brain hemorrhages caused by the bullet fragments. Teehankee was arrested several days later on the testimony of several witnesses. The witnesses were Domingo Florence and Agripino Cadenas, private security guards, and Vincent Mangubat, a driver, all three being employs of residents of the village.
Claudio Teehankee, Jr. was convicted by the the Supreme Court of the Philippines in 1995 of murders of Roland John Chapman and Maureen Hultman and sentenced to one count of reclusión perpetua and two counts of reclusión temporal. As of 2006, he was incarcerated for thirteen years at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.
On October 6, 2008, Sec.Raul M. Gonzalez confirmed Claudio Teehankee Jr.'s release from prison by virtue of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo' commutation of sentence: "Everything went by the rules here. His [Teehankee’s] records have been reviewed by the Board of Pardons and Parole before a recommendation was given to the President."
* My thoughts- If the likes of Mr. Teehankee and Rolito Go are roaming the streets of Metro Manila again, maybe some "guys" can do what Al Pacino did in the movie Righteous Kill.
Source: GMA news, Wikipedia
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1 comments:
the hultmans are lucky they had the power to imprison such a man in the first place. to be honest, there are worse monsters in the philippines than claudio teehankee jr.
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