The main suspect in the fatal mauling of an overseas worker outside a Quezon City bar in March claimed that he only acted in self-defense and that the victim started the fight.

“I was surprised when I heard the news that the victim died,” Mohammad Taher Piti-Ilan said in a counteraffidavit sent to the city prosecutor’s office on Wednesday, where he and four other college students are facing a murder complaint over the death of Abigail Gino Basas.

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Piti-Ilan admitted punching Basas “once” but denied landing the “lethal blow to the victim,” saying “it was someone else and it was done in self-defense.”

He also argued that the complaint should be reduced to homicide, not murder.

Piti-Ilan, who was drinking with a group that included the other suspects, also claimed that he did not know that his companions followed him outside the bar when he confronted Basas after they bumped into each other.

But eyewitness accounts and security camera footage showed that Piti-Ilan returned to his group before attacking the victim and his two companions.

As of Wednesday, four of the five suspects had submitted counteraffidavits insisting on their innocence.

These are Piti-Ilan, Angelo Mark Morata, Earl Bryan Grande and Cyril Angelo Rada. Jameel Benito has yet to file his.

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