Ex-Philippine President Appears in Court for Pre-trail HearingFormer Philippine President Joseph Estrada Appeared in the anti-graft court in Manila Thursday morning for the pre-trail hearing for the perjury charges against him.This is the third court appearance of the 64-year-old Estrada, who is detained at a military hospital. Security is tight as in his first two appearances on June 27 and July 10, when he was arraigned for the perjury and plunder cases. Some 2,000 police personnel and a unit of the Special Action Forces of the police were deployed on the road to and inside the court building. His lawyers and prosecutors are going to mark exhibits and agree on certain facts and definitions of terms in the perjury case. The perjury charges pertain to Estrada's misdeclaration of his statement of assets and liabilities in 1999 when he was in office, which showed his net worth at only 35 million pesos (652,000 U.S. dollars), including 6 million pesos (111,700 dollars) cash on hand and in the bank. The statement was contrary to the prosecutors' allegations in the abortive impeachment trial that Estrada owned a number of multimillion-peso mansions and at least 3.23 billion pesos (60 million dollars) in his bank account under the alias Jose Velarde and others. Apart from the perjury charges, Estrada is also accused of plunder, or massive corruption, for which he was accused of plundering a personal fortune of about 80 million dollars in his 30 months in office. But while he theoretically faces the death sentence if convicted of plunder, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, his successor, has said she will commute the punishment to life imprisonment. Estrada was arrested in April, three months after he was ousted by a military-backed popular uprising. |
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