Dutch development worker Wilhelmus JJ Lutz Geertman. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—The fiancée of slain Dutch non-government organization worker asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday to file a murder case instead of homicide against alleged killers of Wilhelm Geertman.
Geertman was killed last year by a lone gunman in his office in a residential subdivision in Pampanga.
Maria Aurora Agustin Santiago, the fiancée, through the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) said Harold Dela Cruz, Marvin Marsan and other John and Jane Does said the investigating prosecutors “failed to appreciate the facts and the evidence that the main purpose of the perpetrator was to assassinate Geertman and not to rob him.
The lawyers pointed that Geertman was treacherously killed when he was ordered by his killers to kneel down before he was shot.
“Geertman was obviously a victim of extrajudicial killing,” Atty. Edre Olalia, one of the counsel said.
“This is not merely about an investigating prosecutor’s error in the appreciation of the facts and the pieces of evidence before him. The bigger picture is, as in this case, the propensity to ignore and cover-up state responsibility in extrajudicial killings contributes to the impunity and obscures the political nature of the attack,” he added.
Geertman has been in the Philippines for about 30 years.