Updated: 11:32 p.m., Feb. 19, 2017
SAN PEDRO CITY—More than four months after their arrest, the two police officers accused of murdering anticrime crusader Zenaida Luz have been taken into custody by the National Bureau of Investigation.
READ: 2 cops kill anticrime crusader in Mindoro
The two officers—Senior Insp. Magdaleno Pimentel Jr. and Insp. Markson Almeranez—were detained at the NBI in Manila, according to Luz’s partner, Richard Albert.
Senior Insp. Ruel Lito Fronda, police chief of Gloria town, Oriental Mindoro, confirmed the transfer on Tuesday.
On Jan. 10, the Supreme Court granted the petition of the victim’s family to transfer the cases against the police officers to Manila “if only to prevent a miscarriage of justice.”
READ: Zenaida Luz case: ‘I lost my own defender’
“It’s favorable to us now that NBI has them,” Albert said.
Pimentel was assigned to the Provincial Public Safety Company while Almeranez was former police chief of Socorro town in Oriental Mindoro.
Luz, head of the Citizens Crime Watch (CCW) in Mimaropa, was gunned down in front of her apartment and CCW office in Gloria town on Oct. 9 last year.
The motorcycle-riding gunmen, when accosted by the Gloria policemen, turned out to be Pimentel and Almeranez. RAM/rga/atm