No link seen between Sanchez case and BuCor exec’s killing

The Muntinlupa City police has  dismissed the angle that the recent killing of a Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) official was related to his work of processing the good conduct time allowance of prisoners.

Police Maj. Allan Rainier Cabral, the Muntinlupa police investigation section chief, said in a phone interview that their probe did not indicate the murder of Ruperto Traya Jr. had anything to do with his being assistant chief of the BuCor’s Inmate’s Document Processing Division.

Quoting BuCor officials, Cabral said Traya had “a clean record” during his three-year assignment at the division based in Muntinlupa City.

Previous activities

The  investigation was now focused on the victim’s activities at the time he was with the BuCor’s Leyte Regional Prison in Abuyog, Southern Leyte.

The 53-year-old Traya was shot dead by still unidentified motorcycle riders on Aug. 27, amid the botched release of former Calauan, Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez.

The rape-murder convict claimed that due to good conduct, he was set to be freed on Aug. 20 from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City where he was serving seven counts of reclusion perpetua.

During a Senate hearing on Sanchez’s case on Monday, then BuCor director general Nicanor Faeldon said that Traya was transferred to Muntinlupa after an attempt on his life three years ago.

Faeldon claimed that Traya had “connived” with an inmate who was released from the Leyte prison. However, the unidentified inmate was killed in 2016, the same day Traya survived an ambush.

National Bureau of Investigation director Dante Gierran told the Senate they were looking at “two to three angles” in Traya’s case, but did not give more details.