3 cops in abduction case ask court to hold arrest warrant

THREE Quezon City policemen accused of attempting to kidnap an Indian businessman and killing his two companions last year have asked the court to hold in abeyance the issuance of warrants of arrest pending the determination of probable cause to indict them.

Chief Insp. Edwin Faycho, PO2 Edmond Faculdar and PO1 Mark Edward Zapata have filed a motion for the conduct of judicial determination of probable cause in Pasay City’s Regional Trial Court Branch 108.

The three were among the eight persons 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 Insp. 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.

The other accused were Charles Pineda Lou, who identified himself as a civilian asset of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Indian nationals Gurdanshan Singh, Saudagar Singh, Deepak Kumar and Baldev Singh Brar.

Carjacking with force and intimidation charges were also filed against the suspects for the missing Mazda van of Ngie, which the suspects allegedly took.

Probable cause

In their motion, Faycho and Faculdar said the court should first determine whether or not a probable cause exists to uphold or sustain the issuance of warrants of arrest against them.

They added that the charge should be declared null and void, saying the accusation was not supported by law and evidence on record.

Faycho and Faculdar also claimed the prosecutors had mistakenly identified the vehicle they were accused of taking in Pasay City last Dec. 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 it belongs to Andy Ngie,” they said in their motion.

They also hit the prosecutors’ findings that the charge of car theft and double homicide was a complex crime, stressing that the two cases were “entirely distinct, different and unrelated.”

Zapata, in a separate omnibus motion, claimed that the findings of the prosecutors implicating him was not supported by evidence.

He said the conflicting identification of him by the principal witnesses was 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,” read Zapata’s motion.

No sufficient evidence

Like Faycho and Faculdar, Zapata also insisted that there was no sufficient evidence to support the charge of car theft against him.

Zapata also asked the court to defer proceedings pending the resolution of the motion for reconsideration, motion for reinvestigation and motion for the conduct of true preliminary investigation he had filed earlier.

An investigation showed that Khumar, Ret and Ngie were on their way to the Pasay City Police headquarters on Dec. 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 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 shoot-out ensued between Apolinario and the suspects, resulting in the wounding of Apolinario.
The suspects fled, commandeering Ngie’s van and taking with them Ngi and Ret.

Ngie and Ret were found dead a day later. Ngie’s body turned up in Labrador, Pangasinan, while Ret was recovered in Abucay, Bataan.