Davao mayor denies drugs involved in killing of Cebu businessman

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. FILE PHOTO

DAVAO CITY – Mayor Rodrigo Duterte rejected rumors circulating here Friday night that the killing the previous day of Cebu hotelier Richard King was related to illegal drugs.

“It has nothing to do with drugs. The police would not lie if it was,” Duterte told reporters here.

Speculation about drugs started after investigation showed that King, a chemical engineer, had been implicated in the smuggling of pseudoephedrine in Cebu some months ago. While the chemical is widely used in nasal decongestants, it is also an ingredient in the manufacture of “shabu”, which is also known as crystal meth or methampehtamine hydrochloride.

But Duterte said the authorities were not even considering the involvement of illegal drugs in the slaying of the 57-year-old hotelier.

Instead, he said, investigators were looking into several other angles, including King’s businesses in Davao, Cebu, Boracay, Makati and even in Palawan.

Senior Superintendent Vicente Danao Jr., Davao City police director, said the killing was planned well.

King, owner of the Crown Regency chain of hotels and restaurants, also owned Vital C Health Products.

He was presiding over a meeting of Vital C employees here when he was gunned down by a lone assassin Thursday evening.

Danao described the attack as “brazen” because it was carried out before a number of witnesses and the gunman did not even bother to hide behind a mask.

Duterte cut short his press conference Friday evening when two members of the King family arrived.

They talked behind close doors, after which Duterte announced he was adding P300,000 to the P200,000 reward initially offered by the King family for information leading to the arrest of the killer.

“That would make it P500,000,” Duterte said.

Senior Supt. Joel Pernito, head of the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Eastern Mindanao, said an inter-agency task force has been formed to investigate the killing.

He said the investigation would not be confined to Davao City but would also include other places where King operated businesses.

King was in the news several times in the past in connection with various controversies.

He once accused a judge of soliciting bribes from him for a favorable ruling in a case in 2002 and claimed that in 2007, then Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza had demanded a P15 million bribe from contractor Nelson Yu.

“All angles are being looked into, including a possible business rivalry,” Danao said.

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