Suspect held for killing HLURB lawyer

The Quezon City police on Thursday said a suspect in the May 10 killing of lawyer Leonard Jacinto Soriano, an arbiter at the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), was arrested in Cabanatuan City on Wednesday.

Homicide section head Inspector Elmer Monsalve said the suspect, Gelacio Vero, was arrested in connection with a 2004 murder case, but that a witness in Soriano’s ambush recognized him as the man who waited for about half an hour before shooting the lawyer in his car at close range near the HLURB gates in Quezon City.

Monsalve said Vero had a P90,000 bounty on his head for the earlier murder case and that the suspect had “claimed to be one of the original members in Luzon of Alab–Katipunan,” now a party-list organization whose members also belonged to Alex Boncayao Brigade, a breakaway group of the communist New People’s Army.

The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) was earlier notified about Vera’s arrest by the Cabanatuan police, which had a copy of the artist’s sketch of the Soriano slay suspect.

A QCPD team, including members of the intelligence unit, then brought the witness in the Soriano case to Cabanatuan to have a look at Vero, who was arrested at his residence in Barangay (village) Betes, Aliaga, Nueva Ecija.

Vero was arrested on a warrant issued by Judge Juanita Tienzo of Cabanatuan Regional Trial Court Branch 27 in connection with a 2004 murder case, Monsalve said.

Vero denied any involvement in Soriano’s death, “but a witness positively identified him as the gunman,” according to Monsalve.

Soriano had just left the HLURB main office in his car on the afternoon of May 10 when a lone gunman approached and shot him dead near the corner of Mayaman Street and Kalayaan Avenue in Barangay UP Village.

In an interview in Quezon City, the witness claimed he was seated right beside the gunman at a tricycle terminal and saw the latter approach Soriano’s car for the kill.

“I could clearly see his face because it was not covered. I sat next to him for about 30 minutes,” the witness said.

“He just stood there for a few minutes (after the shooting), showing no emotion, and waited for his companion who later arrived on a motorcycle,” the witness added.

Monsalve said Soriano’s murder could be related to his job as HLURB arbiter. He noted that before the killing, Soriano issued a decision against a group of residents in connection with a land dispute in Novaliches, Quezon City.

“We don’t want to discuss it further because the case at the HLURB is still ongoing,” he said.