MANILA, Philippines—After three days of evading the law, the alleged gunman in the murder of Mayor Erlinda Domingo of Maconacon, Isabela, was captured while sniffing illegal drugs night inside the Salaam Mosque compound in Quezon City late Friday night.
It took 200 policemen and one-and-a-half hours of scouring the dark inner alleys of the compound, located in Barangay Culiat, to find Marsibal Indaman “Bagwis” Abduhadi, 39, inside a small shanty.
The alleged gunman was caught during a pot session with a woman, but still on the lookout for policemen hunting for him.
“He had a submachine gun by his side when we got him. That means he was alert even if he was using illegal drugs,” said Quezon City Police District director Senior Superintendent Richard Albano in an interview.
Abduhadi was arrested at around 11:30 p.m. Friday at his hideout in a special operation conducted by several units of the QCPD.
Also arrested was his pot session partner, one Jennifer de Guzman of Barangay Old Balara.
Police recovered an Intratech submachine gun with two magazines loaded with 9-mm bullets, one caliber .25 magazine and two fragmentation grenades inside his hideout.
Also seized were four sachets of shabu, four sachets of cocaine and one sachet of marijuana, plus shabu paraphernalia of aluminium foil, tooter and lighter.
According to Albano, they received information a day after the ambush that a man wearing a police jacket was seen brandishing a high-powered gun in the compound and that the man was the “Bagwis” who shot Domingo, 51, on Tuesday night.
Domingo was gunned down outside the Park Villa Apartelle at the corner of Examiner Street and Quezon Avenue on Tuesday night while her driver, Bernard Plasos, was wounded in the right thigh.
Plasos had identified Abduhadi as the gunman. Three other suspects were arrested shortly after the killing —Christian Pajenado, Michael Domingo and Abduhadi’s wife Mary Grace— and they have all been charged with murder and attempted murder at the Quezon City prosecutor’s office.
The QCPD then planned the operation for Friday night to collar Abduhadi, who reportedly knew the mastermind of the ambush.
Homicide section head Inspector Elmer Monsalve of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit said they were able to double-check the gunman’s identity with Jaymar Waradji, one of the suspects in the Julie Ann Rodelas case who also lived at the Salaam Mosque compound.
“He and Bagwis knew each other so when we showed him a photo of Bagwis, he said it was him,” the official said.
In what seemed to be a stroke of luck, a brief fire broke out at 8 p.m. causing chaos among residents.
“Bagwis was also jarred by the fire and he was seen brandishing his gun again,” Albano said.
At around 10 p.m., 200 policemen stormed the compound and began scouring the dimly lit alleys for Abduhadi, who was reportedly hiding in a shanty in the heart of the slum.
“It was really dark and far into the compound. We needed that many men because it is dangerous to conduct an operation at the compound with only a handful of policemen,” said deputy director for operations Senior Superintendent Neri Ilagan, who personally led the operation dubbed “Oplan Galugad.”
“He never left because he thought he was safe there. He thought wrong about Culiat. There are still tipsters there,” Albano added.
The operatives came from the CIDU, District Intelligence Division, District Special Operations Unit, Special Reaction Unit, District Anti-Illegal Drugs and the Talipapa police station.
The arresting team caught Abduhadi and De Guzman right in the middle of their shabu session.
Albano noted that even though the gunman had his high-powered gun ready, he was still apparently “caught by surprise.”
“Salaam Compound is his haven so he was relaxed. He didn’t think that we’d storm his hideout,” the police official added.
Operatives were able to pin down the suspect even before he could fire his submachine gun inside the small shanty.
Albano noted that a caliber .25 magazine was found with Abduhadi, which is the same caliber found with his wife, Mary Grace before dawn Wednesday.
The district director said the gunman allegedly went to his wife and asked her to hide the Beretta caliber .25 pistol and caliber .45 pistol, but the guns were eventually found with her when she was arrested.
According to CIDU head Chief Inspector Rodelio Marcelo, they had yet to interrogate the suspect as he was still high on drugs.
“We will have to wait for some time to talk to him and get some sensible information from him when he’s sober,” the official said.
Apart from murder and attempted murder, police will also be charging Abduhadi with illegal possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives, violation of the election gun ban, drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Marcelo said they will also file usurpation of authority charges against the suspect for the police jacket found in his possession.
The murder and attempted murder charges against Abduhadi will undergo a regular preliminary investigation, he added.