PNP, NBI agents connived in Korean’s kidnap-slay – Bato

MANILA, Philippines - Rogue policemen and some members of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had connived to kidnap and murder Korean Jee Ick-joo, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa said yesterday.

“It was really a syndicate. Members of the two agencies connived with one another,” he said in a chance interview at Camp Crame.

Dela Rosa made the assessment as more information surfaced on the kidnapping of Jee in Angeles City, Pampanga and his murder inside Camp Crame in October last year.

The police chief was citing information from a joint PNP-NBI task force investigating the case.

Initial investigation, he said, showed corrupt officers from the two agencies had Jee snatched so they could extort money from him. When Jee refused, they hatched a plot to link him to illegal drugs and make an example of him to other Koreans allegedly involved in illegal online gaming in Angeles City.

Senior Police Officer 3 Ricky Sta. Isabel, a former operative of the dissolved PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs Group (AIDG), would make it appear Jee’s kidnapping was an anti-drug operation.

The group’s plan was to create a scenario where Jee would be killed in a drug sting at the Quezon City Memorial Circle on the evening of Oct. 18.

Dela Rosa said Sta. Isabel would plant a firearm on Jee and place empty shells at the scene to make it appear there was a shootout.

The PNP chief, however, did not explain why the plan did not materialize as Jee ended up dead in the main police headquarters at Camp Crame.

Another suspect in the case, Supt. Rafael Dumlao III, said in a TV interview Wednesday that it was Sta. Isabel who talked an official and several members of the NBI into joining the operation to kidnap and murder Jee.

He tagged NBI National Capital Region director Ricardo Diaz as the official mentioned by Sta. Isabel. Diaz, head agent Darwin Lising, deputy director for investigation services Jose Yap and task force against illegal drugs chief Roel Bolivar were relieved on Thursday and reassigned to different units.

Dumlao claimed his refusal to get involved with the syndicate angered Sta. Isabel, who threatened to implicate him in Jee’s abduction.

Sought for comment on the reported existence of such a syndicate, Dela Rosa said he is not afraid of the people behind Jee’s killing. “Bring it on. For the interest of justice, I’m willing to die every time,” he said.

He added he was not discounting the possible involvement of some Koreans in the syndicate. “It’s possible but so far we have not established that theory,” he said.

Despite accusations of collusion with rogue policemen in the kidnap-slay of Jee, NBI officials and personnel maintain a “very high morale.” 

 “That’s part of the job, we have to continue with our work,” said NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin.

NBI officials and employees attended a first Friday mass, which Lavin said was held “for unity and solidarity.” 

“Of course we support the officers and men who were implicated by Colonel (Rafael) Dumlao… and we deny in the strongest terms their involvement,” Lavin said. “If you notice, the NBI officials were not originally charged.”

 Unexplained meeting

Choi Kyung-jin attends the preliminary investigation on the kidnap-slaying of her husband, Jee Ick-joo, at the DOJ office in Manila yesterday. EDD GUMBAN

With Jee’s case being reinvestigated, Sen. Leila de Lima said Philippine Anti-Kidnapping Group (AKG) head Senior Supt. Glenn Dumlao should explain his supposed meeting with Sta. Isabel’s wife and a lawyer last Jan. 13 at Camp Crame, otherwise he should inhibit from the probe.

De Lima said she received information that Dumlao, together with Supt. Rafael Dumlao and Col. Allan Macapagal also of the AKG, met with the wife of Sta. Isabel and his lawyer at the Camp Crame tennis court, near a branch of Landbank of the Philippines on the night of Jan. 13.

“If so, what was that meeting all about? What exactly was discussed? Why would the two AKG officials, who were supposedly doing a probe re Jee’s case, be meeting with the camp of SPO3 Sta. Isabel, the then principal suspect?” De Lima said.

“Without casting aspersions on his integrity, Glenn Dumlao ought to explain this intriguing aspect of the case. Absent a satisfactory explanation, it would be best if he recuse himself from the reinvestigation of the case, and for that matter, AKG should be divested of its role in such reinvestigation and transfer the same to another more appropriate unit, say, CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group),” she added.

Sta. Isabel has denied taking part in the kidnapping and murder of Jee and pointed to Supt. Dumlao as the principal suspect.

During a recent hearing conducted by the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs into the incident, Sta. Isabel claimed that Supt. Dumlao and Macapagal frequented his home after news broke out about the killing. 

Dumlao and Macapagal reportedly were trying to convince Sta. Isabel’s wife to clear them of involvement in the case.

Sta. Isabel claimed that Dumlao promised that his name would be cleared if he agreed to implicate two other policemen in the case, who he said would eventually be killed.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has given the joint PNP-NBI task force five working days to submit all the documents and pleadings in the Jee case.

The DOJ panel composed of Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera and Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas began its re-investigation yesterday. The next hearing is scheduled on Feb. 16. The DOJ panel has 60 days or until April 19 to complete its re-investigation.

Present at the hearing were respondents Sta. Isabel, SPO4 Roy Villegas, PO2 Christopher Baldovino, Gream Funeral Service owner Gerardo Gregorio Santiago, Ramon Yalung, Christopher Alan Gruenberg and NBI errand boy Jerry Omlang.

Supt. Dumlao skipped the hearing for “security reasons,” his lawyer Ricardo Moldez II said. He assured the DOJ that Dumlao was “just in the area.”

Meanwhile, In the hearing yesterday, NBI errand boy Omlang tagged Supt. Rafael Dumlao as mastermind of Jee’s kidnap-slay and that Sta. Isabel was a reluctant participant in the case. –  With Ghio Ong, Evelyn Macairan, Marvin Sy, Paolo Romero