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MANILA, Philippines ? The Philippine Embassy in Spain is closely monitoring the detention of the rape-slay convict who is to serve the remainder of his life sentence in a Madrid prison, according to an embassy report to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The embassy said Francisco ?Paco? Larrañaga, accompanied by Spanish police officers who fetched him at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila Tuesday morning, arrived at Madrid?s Barajas International Airport on October 6 at 11:34 p.m. (Madrid time) via Amsterdam.
Still under escort by Spanish Police officers, Larrañaga was taken to the national police station at the airport?s Terminal T4 and then taken to the Central Registry in Moratalaz, a Madrid suburb, where his fingerprints and other data were taken.
Larrañaga was later transferred to the Centro Penitenciario Madrid 5, a maximum security prison in the suburb of Soto del Real, where he would continue to serve the sentence imposed by a Philippine court. Soto del Real is about 45 minutes away from the Spanish capital and is part of the Madrid metropolitan area and autonomous community.
The Cebu City regional trial court convicted Larrañaga and five others in 1999 of kidnapping, rape and murder in connection with the killing of the sisters Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong, and imposed on him the penalty of death.
The Philippine Supreme Court later affirmed the sentence. But with the abolition of the death penalty, Larrañaga?s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Larrañaga had asked the court for transfer of detention to Spain, citing the provisions of Philippine-Spain Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement that the two countries ratified in 2007.
The treaty provides the legal framework for the transfer of sentenced individuals, for humanitarian reasons, to their home countries in order to serve the remaining portion of their sentence.
The DFA said it has instructed the Philippine embassy to closely monitor Larrañaga?s imprisonment in Spain to ensure that the terms of the sentence imposed on him in the Philippines would be observed.
The DFA said the Spanish government has assured Manila that there would be no modification of the jail term.
The Spanish government, the DFA said, added that it was ?bound by the terms of the judgment of conviction, and no justification whatsoever exists to revise the decision handed down by the Philippine judicial authorities.?
Larrañaga, who holds Filipino and Spanish citizenships, has family members in the Guipuzcoa and Catalonia regions in Spain.
Meanwhile, the DFA said the Department of Justice was working on the request of two Filipino prisoners in Spain, who have expressed a desire to be transferred and repatriated to the Philippines, under the TSPA.
No details were immediately available, however.
