THE Supreme Court (SC) has denied the bid of Robert “running priest” Reyes and lawyer Argee Guevarra to intervene in the case of the so-called Abadilla 5 and seek the Court’s reversal of its decision affirming their conviction for the ambush-slay  of police Col. Rolando Abadilla in 1996.

SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the motion for leave to file manifestation of Reyes and Guevarra was junked by the Court for lack of merit.

In their manifestation Reyes and Guevarra asked the Court to review its ruling, including the alleged vital pieces of evidence which were presented during the trial of the case involving the Abadilla 5.

Reyes claimed that the Abadilla 5—Senior Police Officer 2 Cesar Fortuna, Rameses de Jesus Calma, Leonardo Lumanog, Joel de Jesus and Augusto Santos—were innocent and that the communist assassination group, the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB), was behind Abadilla’s assassination.

But, Marquez said “it appears that it was not their personal knowledge.”

The SC official, however, clarified that the Court has yet to resolve the earlier motion for reconsideration filed by the families of the five convicts.

Reyes recounted that sometime in January 2000, he was approached by an ABB leader who confessed to him that it was the ABB hit squad which carried out Abadilla’s assassination and that the Abadilla 5 were not ABB hitmen.

The ABB leader, added Reyes, also entrusted to him a gold-plated Omega watch that ABB hitmen took from Abadilla immediately after the ambush.

The pistol taken from Abadilla by the ABB hitmen after the ambush was still with the group and was not turned over to him, Reyes said.

On the other hand, Guevarra served as the link for the meeting between the ABB leader and Reyes which took place 11 years ago.

Abadilla was shot dead on June 13, 1996, while his car was stuck in traffic on Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital from multiple-gunshot wounds in the body.

The five convicts denied participation in the killing of the former police official and claimed they were tortured by their police custodians into admitting the crime.

The SC, however, said the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) did not make any categorical finding of physical violence inflicted on the accused by police authorities during its investigation.

The SC held that the trial court was correct in giving full credence to the testimony of security guard Freddie Alejo, who witnessed the shooting.