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General offers

to testify on

Aquino killing

MANILA: A fugitive general who was the top military aide of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos has offered to testify before the Philippine Senate on the 1983 murder of opposition leader Benigno Aquino, a legislator said on Friday.

Blas Ople, who was then labour minister under Marcos and is now a member of the Senate, told reporters that former armed forces chief Fabian Ver had called his chief of staff on Wednesday and indicated his willingness to testify.

Ver, who was charged as the mastermind in the assassination of Marcos's arch-rival, fled the country and vanished when Marcos was overthrown in a popular revolt in 1986.

"He (Ver) told us he will be happy to come back and testify in the Senate," Ople said. Ver was calling from outside the Philippines, but Ople did not know where.

Ople has been urging the Senate to reopen hearings on the Aquino killing, saying it would allow the country to find out who masterminded it.

Aquino was shot and killed in 1983 after returning from three years of exile in the United States.

Ople said President Fidel Ramos, who was then Marcos's police chief, would have to approve any request for Ver to come back.

Ver was among those charged in 1991, but was never tried. Various reports have placed him in the United States, Europe or Asia.-Reuter