MANILA, Philippines—The three Quezon City policemen accused of attempting to kidnap an Indian trader and killing his two companions in 2010 have asked the court to hold in abeyance the issuance of warrants of arrest pending the determination of probable cause to indict them.
Chief Inspector Edwin Faycho, Police Officer 2 Edmond Faculdar and PO1 Mark Edward Zapata have all filed a motion for the conduct of judicial determination of probable cause before the Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 108.
The three policemen were among the eight people charged with attempted kidnapping with frustrated homicide for the foiled abduction of Manjinder James Khumar; direct assault and frustrated murder for the shooting of Senior Inspector Renato Apolinario of the Pasay City Police; and two counts of murder for the killing of Khumar’s companions, Ferdinand Ret and Andy Bryan Ngie.
Others accused were Charles Pineda Lou, who identified himself as a civilian asset of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Indian nationals identified as Gurdanshan Singh, Saudagar Singh, Deepak Kumar and Baldev Singh Brar.
Carjacking with force and intimidation was also filed against the suspects for the missing Mazda van of Ngie, which the suspects allegedly took.
In their motion, Faycho and Faculdar said the court should first determine probable cause to uphold or sustain the issuance of arrest warrants against them.
They added that the charge should be declared by the court as null and void, saying the accusation was not supported by law and evidence on record.
Faycho and Faculdar claimed that the prosecutors misidentified the vehicle which they were accused of taking during the alleged kidnapping and murder attempt in Pasay City last December 20.
“The prosecutors described the plate number thereof as BDR-499 but the true plate number is BDN-499. Worse, the plate number has not been validated or confirmed that its ownership pertains to Andy Ngie,” they said in their motion.
They questioned the filing of charges for a complex crime when the charges of carjacking and double homicide were “entirely distinct different and unrelated.”
“The charge of carnapping with double homicide is a complex crime. If the kidnapping of Khumar a gratia argumenti was the main objective of the culprits and the subject vehicle was taken as an incident in the attempt to kidnap Khumar, surely there is no complexity of the crime involved because the alleged taking was not a necessary means to commit kidnapping,” they explained in their motion.
On the other hand, Zapata, in a separate omnibus motion he filed in court, claimed that the findings of the prosecutors implicating him was not supported by evidence.
He stressed that there was an obvious bias against him. He added that principal witnesses contradicted each other in identifying him as one of the culprits but these were not even considered.
“Although Khumar identified Zapata through a mere picture presented to him, Apolinario did not point to [him] as one of the assailants…. Other witnesses did not also identify Zapata yet he was charged….the[se] cannot be considered minor inconsistencies but are material points which should have been considered,” Zapata said in his motion.
Like Faycho and Faculdar, Zapata also insisted that there has been no sufficient evidence to support the charge of carnapping against him.
Zapata also asked the court to defer proceedings pending the resolution of the motion for reconsideration and motion for reinvestigation and motion for the conduct of true preliminary investigation he earlier filed.
Investigation showed that Khumar, Ret and Ngie were on their way to the Pasay City Police headquarters in the afternoon of December 20 when armed men surrounded their van along 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 stopped in the area when he 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 shootout ensued between Apolinario and the suspects. Apolinario was wounded but he fought them off. In the end, the suspects fled, commandeering Ngie’s van but taking with them Ngie and Ret.
A day after, Ngie and Ret were separately found dead in Labrador, Pangasinan and in Abucay, Bataan, respectively.