Murder raps filed vs 7 in Jolo police chief slay

MANILA, Phlippines — Police investigators have filed murder charges against seven people for the ambush-slay of the Jolo police chief involved in the fatal shooting of four intelligence operatives of the Philippine Army in June last year. Named respondents in the complaints filed on Friday before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor of Maguindanao were Rasul Nahang Radja, Nara Kagatan Asula and five still unidentified men. All remain at large. The seven were suspects in the killing of Police Lt. Col. Walter Annayo, then chief of the Jolo Municipal Police Station, on Nov. 21, 2020. Annayo had just alighted from his Toyota Fortuner to buy buko (coconut water) juice from a stall in Narciso Ramos Highway in Barangay Macabiso, Sultan Mastura town in Maguindanao when gunmen in another car shot him. His killers sped away toward Parang, according to witnesses. —DEXTER CABALZA