19 feb

Philippine court orders retrial of condemned pair

MANILA, Feb 19 - Two Filipinos sentenced to death and reprieved four days before their due execution were granted a retrial on Thursday after the country's supreme court said new evidence could prove their innocence.

Eight of the 14 Supreme Court judges voted to suspend the execution and send the kidnapping-for-ransom case against Roberto Lara and Roderick Licayan to a regional trial court.

The court said it had given weight to affidavits from the two men that suggested Lara had played no part in the kidnapping.

They were among seven people accused of the 1998 kidnapping of a Chinese trader and his assistant.

"Praise the Lord," said Persida Acosta, their defense lawyer.

Lara and Licayan were due to die by lethal injection on January 30, but the court suspended the execution four days earlier and gave the two a 30-day reprieve.

The executions would have been the first since the government of former President Joseph Estrada imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo lifted the suspension in December, and more than a dozen death row convicts are scheduled for execution this year.