Report: Compassionate pardon reaches Philippine prisoner too late

Jul 29, 2011, 6:55 GMT

Manila - The Philippine president signed a compassionate pardon for an ailing 63-year-old prisoner without realising the convict had already died, a human rights group said Friday.

Mariano Umbrero died on July 15 from lung cancer, four days before President Benigno Aquino signed the pardon that had been intended to allow him to spend his last days at home.

'Apparently, the president is oblivious to the fact that he gave conditional pardon to a dead man,' said Emmanuel Amistad, the executive director of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines.

The group, which campaigns for the release of political prisoners and prison reforms in the country, said it received a copy of the release order for Umbrero on Thursday.

'It seems that the release papers stopped at a bureaucratic red light and did not move till he was dead,' Amistad said.

Umbrero, who was convicted of kidnapping in 2004, would have been the first prisoner Aquino pardoned since he took office in June 2010.

The task force said it had been campaigning for Umbrero's release since March, one month after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

The group added that Umbrero's original conviction was politically motivated.

The prisoner had said he was innocent of the charges, which he alleged aimed to stop his activities as a leftist community organizer for farmers in the northern province of Cagayan, the group said.

It added that Umbrero had been among 320 people serving jail sentences or detained awaiting trial across the country for their political beliefs.

More than 100 alleged political detainees launched a hunger strike on Monday to demand their release and reforms in the prison system, especially the slow parole process.