Lam ‘middleman’ seeks Senate security due to ‘threats’ to his life
Wally Sombero Jr., alleged middleman of gambling tycoon Jack Lam, is asking for security assistance from the Senate, citing “threats to his life” should he appear in its ongoing probe into the alleged P50 million bribery scandal involving some immigration officials.
Sombero has been summoned by the Senate blue ribbon committee to appear in its next hearing on Thursday, February 9.
“Our client is willing to appear and cooperate in the investigation. However, he has received threats to his life if he appears in the committee hearing,” Sombero’s lawyer, Ted Contacto, said in a letter dated February 3, 2017 to Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the committee.
“It is for this reason that we are requesting for your assistance to provide our client with security to ensure his safety traveling to and from the Senate grounds,” the latter added.
It was Sombero who allegedly handed P50 million to former Bureau of Immigration Associate Commissioners Al Argosino and Michael Robles during a meeting at a restaurant in Paranaque City last November 27. The money was supposedly in exchange for the release of undocumented Chinese workers at Lam’s Fontana Leisure Parks and Casino in Clark, Pampanga.
But the two former officials have repeatedly denied the allegation, saying they received the money as evidence in a case against Lam.
Before his meeting with Argosino and Robles, Sombero also met with Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre III, Argosino, Lam and his two interpreters at the Shangri-La Hotel in Taguig.
Aguirre informed the committee last week that Sombero had sent him a text message to clear his name in the controversy. CDG/rga
