A court in the Philippines on Tuesday found a U.S. Marine guilty of killing a transgender woman.
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“But the important thing is he will be jailed”, she said, crying. He and a group of other Marines were on leave after the exercises and met Laude and her friends at a bar in Olongapo, a city known for its nightlife located outside Subic Bay, a former US Navy base. The court heard that Pemberton and Laude agreed to have sex after meeting, but that the drunken Marine turned violent when he discovered Laude still had male genitals.
Pemberton has been charged with murder but was convicted of the lesser offense of homicide, which does not require malicious intent.
Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton choked Jennifer Laude because he realised she was transgender while performing oral sex. “We expected a murder conviction but instead got homicide”.
Pemberton had earlier admitted in court to choking, but not killing, Laude, and said it was self-defense.
The Philippines’ Department of Justice, however, issued an order allowing Pemberton to be detained in a military camp in Manila until his appeal is decided by the courts, supposedly in accordance with an existing U.S.-Philippines military agreement.
Laude’s family are quite dismayed with the sentence that Pemberton received.
“All circumstances form a chain that leads to reasonable conclusion that Pemberton is responsible for the killing of Laude”, Judge Roline Jinez Jabalde of the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court Branch 74 said in her decision as read by Clerk of Court Gerry Gruspe.
Laude was found dead, with his head inside a toilet bowl, in the bathroom of a Celzone Lodge room in Olongapo City on October 11, 2014.
Outside the courthouse, a small number of left-wing activists rejoiced but warned that they would closely watch to ensure Pemberton is detained in a Philippine jail, as the judge ordered.
LFS-NMR Spokesperson Kristine Cabardo said dangers of the VFA and Enhanced Defensed Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) have been highlighted with Laude’s case. United States guards securing Pemberton reportedly prevented Philippine police from taking him. He was then moved to a USA facility inside Camp Aguinaldo.
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Pemberton, an anti-tank missile operator assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., testified that he had drunk a half-dozen beers and several shots of liquor on the night of the slaying. “This is a sad day for the victim’s family, a sad day for Philippine sovereignty”. “It shows the USA gets what it wants”, said lawyer Harry Roque.
