Murder raps filed vs 2 ex-cops, 3 others in Lopez-Cohen slay

CASE BREAKTHROUGH Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos on Monday presents to reporters the two former policemen now considered suspects in the murder of Geneva Lopez and her Israeli fiancé Yitshak Cohen. —SCREENGRAB FROM PHILIPPINE NATIONAL POLICE

The police on Thursday filed murder charges against five people allegedly involved in the killing of Kapampangan pageant contestant Geneva Lopez and her Israeli boyfriend, Yitshak Cohen, whose remains were found buried in a quarry site in Tarlac province early July, two weeks after they were reported missing.

After filing the complaint in the Department of Justice, Thomas Valmonte, legal division head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, told reporters that the five respondents, two of them former police officers, were facing two counts of murder. “They held a meeting that’s why there are allegations of conspiracy. They met and planned the actual killing of the two victims,” Valmonte said.

READ: Land dispute seen as motive for Lopez-Cohen murders

He said two persons shot and killed the victims while another individual disposed of and buried the bodies. Valmonte declined to identify the respondents.

Land dispute

Earlier reports, however, showed that two former policemen tagged initially as “persons of interest” in the abduction and murder of Lopez and Cohen were arrested in July for illegal possession of firearms.

A police report identified one of them as dismissed policeman Michael Angelo Guiang, who earlier executed a sworn statement that he was the middleman who Lopez and Cohen had met in Capas, Tarlac, on June 21 to talk about the 20.5-hectare agricultural land the couple was supposedly buying.

Police also arrested former policeman Rommel Abuzo in a separate operation.

Valmonte said the motive behind the murder involved a parcel of land pawned to the couple by the respondents.

“Based on the investigation, the respondents pawned the land to the victims. It seems like they wanted to take back the land documents from the victims. However, the victims didn’t want to return them because, of course, they had given money, so the money should be returned to them,” he said.

The couple’s vehicle, a Nissan Terra sport utility vehicle, was found burning along Cojuangco Road in Barangay Cristo Rey, Capas, at 2:36 a.m. on June 22, or about 12 hours after the couple’s relatives could no longer contact them.

The decomposing bodies of Lopez and Cohen were found buried in a remote quarry site in Barangay Sta. Lucia, also in Capas, on July 6, ending a two-week search.