Bohol Board Member Niño Rey Boniel and his wife, Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel in an undated photo (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
CEBU CITY – The Central Visayas regional police cannot release Bohol board member Niño Rey Boniel who is suspected of killing his wife, Bien Unido town Mayor Gisela Boniel.
Central Visayas police director Chief Supt. Noli Taliño said they could not comply with the order of Bohol Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Marivic Trabajo-Daray because two of the suspects had confessed to complicity in murder.
“We will not release them,” Taliño said, claiming that the supposed confession of Niño’s cousin Riolito Boniel and Niño’s driver Randel Lupas would lead to upgraded charges.
Riolito told the police that Niño killed Gisela and dumped her body in the waters off Punta Engaño between Cebu and Bohol.
Lupas also pinned Niño to the killing, saying the provincial official ordered him and a certain Jay-R to carry the mayor onto a pump boat.
Lupas said that while she was already wrapped in a blanket, Gisela was still alive when he helped carry her onto the pump boat which also carried Jay-R, Riolito and Niño.
Riolito admitted being on board the boat and said they tied a heavy rock to Gisela’s body and dumped her in the water.
Riolito said he knew the couple had “problems” and were fighting, but claimed he was only dragged into Niño’s “craziness.”
Taliño said the authorities were still pursuing two other suspects in the case but declined to identify them.
Meanwhile, regional police intelligence chief Senior Supt. Jonathan Cabal said the police would ask a superior court to review Daray’s order to release the suspects.
Cabal said Niño was transferred on Sunday from the Fuente Police Station to a detention cell in the Central Visayas police headquarters.
He said the suspect was transferred because the Regional Intelligence Division had jurisdiction over the case of Boniel.
The two Boniels and Lupas were initially arrested on the complaint of Gisela’s best friend, Angela Leyson, that she, her teenage son and the mayor were detained at a resort in Bien Unido on Tuesday night.
Leyson claimed that she was handcuffed and subjected to electroshock while Niño punched and took Gisela away.
It was the last time the mayor was seen alive.
The police initially arrested the cousins Boniel and Lupas with kidnapping and illegal detention around 10 p.m. of June 7 because they still had no evidence of murder.
However, the Bohol provincial police failed to file charges within the reglementary 36 hours, prompting Niño’s lawyer, Handel Lagunay, to file a writ of habeas corpus before the RTC in Tubigon, Bohol.
Judge Daray of Branch 52 granted the petition and ordered Bohol police chief Senior Supt. Felipe Natividad to present Niño and Lupas, to the court at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.
But the police again failed to present the two suspects and instead brought them to the provincial prosecutor’s office in Tagbilaran City on Friday afternoon to file charges.
Natividad again wrote the court to say they failed to present Niño and Lupas on Friday morning because they were rushing to file the charges within 36 hours.
Daray gave Natividad until 5 p.m. on Friday to submit documents proving an inquest proceeding was conducted at the prosecutor’s office.