Two soldiers and a civilian accomplice have been sentenced to life in prison for shooting seven people dead and wounding two others in the central Philippines six years ago, a court said Tuesday.
A trial court in Manila handed maximum consecutive terms of 139 years to both Jobe Rubio and Marcial Ambulo for homicide and attempted homicide over the August 2000 incident near Victoria town on Mindoro island.
The soldiers had admitted the fatal pistol shootings of seven male civilians and the wounding of two others, including a woman. But they said they had fired in self-defense following a quarrel.
However, judge Myra Fernandez wrote in her ruling, made available to the press Tuesday, that "after careful analysis of the evidence on record, this court finds that the version of the prosecution is more worthy of belief."
She sentenced a third defendant, a civilian named Jaime Gilboy, to a total of 78 years in prison as an accomplice.
The two surviving victims testified at the trial.
The judge rejected prosecutors' claims that the three defendants were guilty of the more serious charge of murder, which would have carried a sentence of 40 years to life for each charge.
"The qualifying circumstances of treachery and abuse of superior strength cannot be taken against the accused. The testimonies of Aida Metrillo and Danilo Asilo show that a prior misunderstanding occured earlier that night between the accused and several persons," the court ruled.
President Gloria Arroyo in June signed a law abolishing the death penalty ahead of a trip to the Vatican.
