Brother of alleged Cebu drug lord survives attack; 1 dead

CEBU CITY—A younger brother of Cebu businessman and alleged drug lord Peter Lim survived an attack by unidentified gunmen that left a security guard dead and two foreigners wounded.

Lim said his brother, Wellington, was unharmed in the ambush around 11 a.m. on Friday as his brother’s black bulletproof Ford Expedition was leaving the parking lot of  Infinity Bar KTV and Music Lounge in Cebu City.

Lim’s brother managed to drive to Asia Premiere Residences, a condominium in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City, about half a kilometer away.

Security guard William Bocay was killed. Another security guard, George Lambatan, and a German couple who were passing by were wounded and taken to a hospital.

Senior Supt. Joel Doria, director of the Cebu City Police Office, said investigators could not confirm that Lim’s 70-year-old brother was inside the ambushed vehicle.

“We really wanted to know who were on board the vehicle so that we can determine the motive behind the killing,” Doria said in a press conference on Saturday.

Homicide investigators went to the condominium but the person inside the vehicle refused to speak to them.

Lim, 72, told the Inquirer that his brother was the target of the attack and was “too traumatized” to talk.

“This is extreme. This happened in the middle of the city. My brother was lucky to escape. Just imagine, the assailants used an Armalite,” he said.

“I don’t know who did this to my brother. He never received death threats,” Lim added.

Police said the Expedition was heading out of the bar’s parking lot when the assailants on another vehicle opened fire.

Investigators recovered 13 empty shells and live M16 ammunition.

A license plate was found at the scene and its owner would be identified with help from the Land Transportation Office, Doria said.

Infinity Bar is owned by Lim, who has been tagged a drug lord by President Rodrigo  Duterte.

Lim has vehemently denied this. A justice department panel has cleared Lim along with confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa and several others of drug charges but Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II has ordered a reinvestigation.

The Lim brothers were first linked to the illegal drugs trade in 2001 and were subjected to a congressional inquiry.

Two of their former employees—Bernard Liu and Ananias Dy—testified on the brothers’ involvement in illegal drugs during the inquiry.

The congressional panel that investigated the brothers found probable cause against Lim and asked the National Bureau of Investigation to “fortify” the evidence against the Lims.

In July 2006, Dy was shot dead by two unidentified men and Liu was found dead with a rope around his neck in his house in Talisay City in September 2011.

Since Feb. 17, at least 47 persons have been killed by masked assailants in Metro Cebu, mostly in ambuscades. Five others survived the attacks.