DAVAO CITY – A ranking police officer here said the families of the suspects in the killing of Cebu-based businessman Richard King were receiving help from certain individuals, including money and legal assistance.
“Someone is going to the suspect families to support them – pera, lawyers – especially the Dela Cerna brothers,” said Senior Superintendent Aaron Aquino, deputy regional director for operations of the Police Regional Office 11.
Dela Cerna brothers Rommel and Rodel admitted to have roles in the killing of King last June 12.
In their sworn statements, Rommel said he was the driver of the getaway vehicle driver while Rodel said he served as the lookout.
Rodel, however, denied having prior knowledge of the plan to kill King, which was owned later by self-confessed gunman, Paul Dave Labang.
Aquino said they found an MO (mission order) in the possession of Rommel signed by Senior Supt. Leonardo Felonia, who was named as the one who contacted the three suspects.
Meanwhile, Aquino said that they are currently looking into two more persons of interests.
“One is his business partners. We already interviewed them but they revealed nothing about the case. But, we discovered a link when we had their cellphones analysed,” said Aquino. “Our cybercrime group who are doing the digital forensics investigation have not sleep yet for a week now.”
Aquino said King have the four cellphones of King while the two persons of interest “willingly” submitted to them their respective cellphones.
“One of them is the business partner’s secretary who grew-up with King and went to the same high school with him in Cebu,” said Aquino.
Aquino also clarified that Felonia is now under “restrictive custody” which he said means that he is “being guarded 24 /7.”
Felonia is the head of the Regional Intelligence Unit XI of the Philippine National Police and who was accused by the suspects of ordering the killing of King.
Aquino said they also have requested for a “lookout bulletin” against Felonia which means “only the Chief PNP (Alan Purisima) can give him clearance to go out of the country” as he said they have information that Felonia is planning to do so.
Aquino admitted that the previous “restrictive custody” of Felonia was not in place as he said the PNP-Intelligence Group (IG) “already consider it as punishment.”
“I clarified to them that there is already a memorandum from the Chief PNP that he relegated the giving of a restrictive custody to regional officers or their equivalend,” said Aquino adding that he sent a copy of the memo to Senior Superintendent Ronald Dela Rosa, the former city director of the Davao City Police Office and now deputy chief for the Operations of the PNP-IG.
Aquino clarified that the King case is “solved” but not “closed” and that “there are other police officers involved.”
He said that they are still investigation why the gun recovered from Labang when he was captured did not match the slugs from King’s body in the conduct of their ballistics examinations.
He said that they also asked Labang ang the Dela Cernas if they have another gun but the suspects “refused to answer.” Aquino said they are repeating the process as something might have “gone wrong.” (davaotoday.com)
