The US yesterday said that it would comply with a Philippine prosecutor’s order to produce a murder suspect and four other US Marines in the investigation into the killing of a transgender local.
The prosecutor ordered the five US Marines to give depositions at a formal hearing set for Tuesday after police named one of them as a suspect in the Oct. 11 hotel killing in the northern port of Olongapo.
“The United States will continue to assist in the investigation to help ensure justice is served,” US embassy spokeswoman Anna Richey said in an e-mailed response to a reporter’s requests for comment.
“This will include making the suspect, witnesses and any evidence gathered available to the Philippine authorities,” she added.
Richey said the suspect was being held on the USS Peleliu pending an investigation into the death of Jeffrey “Jennifer” Laude, described by local police as a transgender sex worker.
The four other US Marines sought by prosecutors were described as witnesses by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday.
The US Pacific Command earlier ordered the warship to remain at a port near Olongapo while the murder investigation was under way.
Police said that they found the victim half-naked on the bathroom floor of a room with more than a dozen bruises, cuts and bite marks.
They said the victim, who had checked in with the suspect just over an hour earlier, had died from “asphyxia by drowning.”
Police and the prosecutor named the suspect as US Marine Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton, attached to a North Carolina-based unit that had just taken part in joint military exercises in the Philippines.
Following the hearings, which could take days or weeks, the prosecutor could either bring criminal charges or drop the case. If Pemberton is charged with murder and convicted, he could face life in prison.
The Philippines has said that the politically charged case should not be allowed to derail longstanding defense ties between Manila and Washington, amid growing public pressure for Pemberton to be handed over to Philippine custody.
The killing occurred after the Philippines reached an agreement in March to allow its US military ally wider temporary access to domestic military facilities.
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