News In Brief
| Manila
Filipino military denies it had motive to kill Aquino
The military here had no motive for killing Filipino opposition leader Benigno Aquino, the chief of the Filipino armed forces said in an interview published Monday.
Gen. Fabian Ver, speaking for the first time on the Aug. 21 assassination of Aquino, told the independent Business Day newspaper that Mr. Aquino was a ''convict'' with a death sentence already hanging over him in connection with a 1977 conviction.
Ver was among a list of 15 possible Philippine presidents profiled in a 40 -page anniversary supplement of Business Day entitled ''Crisis of leadership.
Aquino was gunned down while under military escort as he stepped off a plane at Manila International Airport on his return from three years of self-exile in the United States.
Critics of the of the US-backed regime of President Ferdinand Marcos say the military was behind the assassination.
