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MANILA: The Philippines deported on Sunday (September 13) a United States Marine convicted of killing a transgender woman in the Southeast Asian country in 2014, after President Rodrigo Duterte granted him an outright pardon.
Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton left Manila International Airport at 9.14 am local time aboard a US military plane bound for the United States, according to the spokesperson for the Immigration Bureau (BI), Dana Sandoval.
Pemberton was accompanied by representatives of the US embassy on his way to the airport, he told state television PTV-4.
“As a consequence of the deportation order against him, Pemberton has been placed on the Bureau’s blacklist, perpetually prohibiting him from returning,” BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said in a statement.
Details of Pemberton’s flight arrangements were not released to the media until after his departure amid tight security.
LEE: Philippine President Duterte pardons a US Marine convicted of killing a transgender woman
A court had found Pemberton guilty of the murder of Jennifer Laude at a hotel in Olongapo, outside a former US naval base northwest of the capital Manila, six years ago, in a case that sparked a debate over the military presence. American in his former colony.
Duterte’s move to pardon Pemberton has led to the condemnation of activists who described the move as a “mockery of justice.”
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, who served as an attorney in Pemberton’s prosecution, had said that Duterte’s decision may have stemmed from his desire to gain access to the coronavirus vaccines that US companies are developing.
However, the Philippine Ministry of Health was quick to say that none of the US vaccine manufacturers the government is in talks with had set conditions.
