Court orders arrest of 7 in attempt to kidnap Indian
MANILA, Philippines—A Pasay City judge has issued warrants for the arrest of seven of the eight men, including three Quezon City policemen, accused of attempting to kidnap an Indian businessman and killing his two companions last year.
Judge Maria Rosario Ragasa of the Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 108 on Thursday ordered the arrest of Chief Insp. Edwin Faycho, P02 Edmond Faculdar, P01 Mark Edward Zapata and Indian nationals Gurdanshan Singh, Saudagar Singh, Deepak Kumar and Baldev Singh Brar.
They were earlier charged with the attempted murder of Manjinder James Khumar; direct assault and frustrated murder for the shooting of Senior Insp. Renato Apolinario of the Pasay City Police; and carnapping with homicide for the death of Khumar’s companions, Ferdinand Ret and Andy Bryan Ngie.
The cases against the eighth accused, Charles Pineda Lou, who identified himself as a civilian asset of the National Bureau of Investigation, was ordered dismissed earlier by the city prosecutor for lack of evidence.
However, while the judge set no bail for Zapata and the four Indian suspects over carnapping with double homicide charges, she ruled that “there is, at the moment, insufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case enough to indict Faycho and Faculdar [for the offense].”
Faycho and Faculdar earlier asked the court to hold in abeyance the issuance of warrants of arrest pending the determination of probable cause to indict them.
“This Court finds that there is no probable cause to issue warrants of arrest against (Faycho) and (Faculdar) for carnapping with double homicide,” the judge said.
The warrants that the court issued against Faycho and Faculdar were for the charges of direct assault with frustrated murder and attempted murder. The bail for the two policemen’s temporary liberty was set at P320,000 each.
Zapata and the Indian suspects were likewise issued separate warrants for direct assault with frustrated murder and attempted murder.
Sought for comment, both Kumar and Apolinario expressed dismay over the court’s decision to allow Faycho and Faculdar to post bail.
“It really came as a shock… How can that happen? They were the principal accused. I have no more trust in the justice system,” Khumar told the Inquirer over the phone.
But he said he intends to appeal the order because he wants justice for his two friends, Ret and Ngie.
“My friends were killed like animals and yet this is the court’s ruling,” he added.
“I couldn’t belive it,” Apolinario said of the court’s decision to allow the two policemen to post bail. “What’s more disaapointing was the fact that there were even three of us—me, James and another witness–who positively identified him (Faycho) as the principal suspect.”
Pasay City chief of police Senior Supt. Napoloen Cuaton shared Apolinario and Khumar’s sentiments.
“it look like the court erred. We will file a motion for reconsideration,” Cuaton said.
In their motion, Faycho and Faculdar hit the prosecutors’ findings that the charge of car theft and double homicide was a complex crime, claiming that the two cases were “entirely distinct, different and unrelated.”
In its order, the court said that the investigating prosecutor’s theory that the crime committed was the special complex crime of carnapping with double homicide was not supported by evidence.
“There was nothing to prove that the original intention was to steal the vehicle and that the killing was perpetrated in the course of the commission of the carnapping or on the occasion thereof,” the court said.
“The fact that the victims Ngie and Ret were killed and they were passengers of the vehicle does not ipso facto mean that the crime is raised to a special complex crime. Their killings and the subsequent taking of the vehicle does not raise any presumption,” it added.
An investigation showed that Khumar, Ret and Ngie were on their way to the Pasay City Police headquarters on Dec. 20 when armed men surrounded their van on F. B. Harrison Street in Pasay City.
Khumar managed to get out of the van and run for cover behind Apolinario, who happened to pass by and noticed the commotion.
The armed men reportedly identified themselves as policemen and demanded that Apolinario hand over Khumar to them, saying that the latter was a “criminal.”
But Khumar told Apolinario that the armed men were trying to kidnap him.
A brief shoot-out ensued between Apolinario and the suspects, resulting in the wounding of Apolinario.
The suspects fled, commandeering Ngie’s van and taking with them Ngi and Ret.
Ngie and Ret were found dead a day later. Ngie’s body turned up in Labrador, Pangasinan, while Ret was recovered in Abucay, Bataan.
