ANGELES CITY—The Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group PNP-CIDG) on Friday started investigating allegations of a former Australian justice, that a police-linked syndicate had tried to extort from him on trumped-up charges.

“We will not tolerate this if true,” Senior Supt. Lorenzo Eleazar Guillermo, CIDG regional chief, said by telephone in reaction to the claims made by Dr. Stephen Soul.

Soul, 58, made the accusations a few days after posting bail on charges of trying to rape two minors here on Aug. 13.

Following the leads given by Soul, Guillermo said the investigating team would invite for questioning a woman and a man identified only as “Lenny” and “Ranger.”

Soul said Lenny presented to him the two girls, aged 14 and 17, as her cousins.

Lenny, he said, was a commercial sex worker who came to him once a month until she got pregnant by another man five months ago.

Soul said he refused to have sex with the 14-year-old girl because she was a minor. Five minutes after Lenny and two girls arrived, men in civilian clothes barged in and arrested Soul.

Soul said the raiding team left his friend Steve, who locked himself inside the apartment. Lenny, he added, ran out as soon as the lawmen arrived.

Lenny was neither cited as a witness to the raid nor mentioned in any of the affidavits of the girls and their mothers, court documents on the two cases showed.

Pampanga CIDG chief Supt. Florendo Saligao said his men did not inform him of the presence of Lenny during the raid. He said he was not around at that time.

In an e-mail to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Friday, Soul said Lenny’s real name is Caselyn Visda. She also uses the name Lenny Cortez, he said.

“It now seems that the woman who claims to be the guardian of the older 17-year-old is actually the aunt or mother of Lenny. She asked me for P160,000 for the mother and P50,000 for her to claim that the police set this up,” he said.

He believed that Lenny was “involved heavily” with “Ranger.”

“Ranger” is Renato Torres who, Soul said, demanded P500,000 from him on behalf of the girls’ parents. The money was reduced to P300,000, then to P200,000 and finally P100,000. Soul said he refused to pay up and placed himself under inquest proceedings on Aug. 14.

In a phone interview on Friday, Torres, who admitted to being a field agent of the CIDG, denied being present during the raid. He also denied knowing Lenny, asking for P500,000 from Soul, or brokering for the parents.

“That’s not true. I did not ask for money. In fact, I helped him while he was in jail. I kept his mobile phone in the meantime because that was prohibited in jail. I returned it to him [on Aug. 15]. I also served him hot water and noodles,” Torres said in mixed Kapampangan and English.

Torres, a former member of the tourist police, said he only talked to Soul because the parents of the girls could not communicate to the Australian in English.

He said he merely relayed the anger of the parents. The girls claimed that Soul and Steve molested them.

Soul said he wanted the police syndicate to be uncovered and Lenny charged with human trafficking. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon