DOJ summons police official, 3 other suspects in Baron slay

A police official and three others accused of involvement in the New Year’s Eve killing of Baron Cervantes, self-styled spokesman for the Young Officers’ Union (YOU), were summoned to the Department of Justice yesterday to rebut the allegations against them.

Superintendent Rafael Cardeño, Joseph Mostrales, Jaime Centeno, and Erlindo Torres will undergo preliminary investigation at the justice department on June 26 at 2 p.m.

Senior State Prosecutor Theodore Villanueva told reporters the four were given until June 26 to submit their counter-affidavits.

Villanueva heads a three-man panel of prosecutors investigating the case, which includes Mark Jalandoni and Roberto Lao.

In an affidavit executed last May 15, Mostrales, a former Marine sergeant said Cardeño masterminded the killing and that he ordered him to kill Cervantes.

During a police lineup at Camp Crame, a security guard on duty near the crime scene on that fateful day, identified Mostrales as the one who shot Cervantes at close range.

Mostrales is now detained in Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Four other suspects remain at large and have not been charged before the justice department. They are Eugene Radam, Diosdado Santos, Rodolfo Patino, and Sonny Camacho.

Mostrales, who had admitted participation in the murder, told police investigators Cardeño informed him at 9 a.m. of Dec. 31, 2001 of the plan to kill Cervantes and that he was to carry it out that very day.

Mostrales said he, Centeno and Torres on instructions of Cardeño went to Alabang on board his green Hyundai Grace van on the day of the murder.

They then met Patino, Radam and Santos, who were aboard a white Toyota Corolla, and all six of them went to Max’s Restaurant along Alabang-Zapote Road in Las Piñas, where Cardeño called them up via a cell phone, he added.

Mostrales said Cardeño told him "a certain Sonny" would get in touch with him and that Sonny was in charge of "setting up" Cervantes for the killing.

Later Sonny instructed him via a text message to proceed to the corner of Times and Alabang-Zapote Road near Jubileaum Drugstore and 7-11 Convenience Store as Cervantes was already there. –Delon Porcalla