Doc’s attackers identified
Police identified one of the suspected perpetrators of the ambush attempt on Dr. Rico Medina.
Chief Insp. Romeo Santander, head of the Cebu City police’s City Intelligence Branch (CIB), yesterday said one of the suspects left behind an identification card in one of their alleged hideouts.
A photocopy of the I.D. card was obtained from businessman Marlon Amante.
Amante, a resident of barangay Tisa, operates a car rental business from where the attackers got the vehicles they used in blocking Medina’s SUV.
Chief Insp. Santander said they are still verifying if the gunmen were locals or from Mindanao.
The Medina family reportedly owns the Medina College in Ozamis Ciy and two other schools in Pagadian City and Misamis Occidental.
A certain Dr. Rico Medina was likewise mentioned in an Inquirer report early this year as the one who confronted Aman Futures Group founder Manuel Amalilio in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah early this year.
Senior Supt. Mariano Natu-el, chief of police of Cebu City, said they will also look into a possible link between the ambush and Medina’s involvement in the Aman Futures case.
Aman Futures is a Mindanao-based investment outfit that was allegedly behind a multi-billion pyramiding scam that victimized tens of thousands of people in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“Based on our analysis, kidnapping (is a likely motive). We know that aside from schools in Mindanao, the family is financially stable,” Natu-el said.
Santander however ruled out kidnapping as a motive.
Senior Supt. Noli Romana, chief of the Negros Oriental Provincial Police Office, said his men are monitoring entry and exit points in the province as part of an expanded dragnet rolled out by the Police Regional Office 7.
Natu-el said they have deployed policemen to secure the Medina family.
The Medina family were shot more than 10 times by their pursuing assailants while inside their Toyota Fortuner located 400 meters away from their home in M and E West City Subdivision in barangay Labangon. No one was hurt.
