5 kidnappers get death

A Quezon City court sentenced five men to death yesterday for the 1998 kidnapping of four children.

Judge Natividad Dizon of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 106 found Antonio Tan, Benjamin Dy, Jonathan Braga, Eliseo Barredo, and Wilmar Carian guilty of kidnapping, and imposed a mandatory death sentence.

She also sentenced to death Vicente Badul and Nestor Pationa, who remain at large. "We need to follow the law," Dizon told the men after pronouncing the sentence.

The five men showed little emotion, while one of their wives wiped away tears. An eighth suspect in the case, Chinese national Tony Ti Chin Uy, died in jail during the trial. The cause of his death was not reported.

In a three-page decision, Dizon also ordered the seven men to pay the victims a total of P400,000 in moral and exemplary damages. Dizon, however, dismissed the charges of illegal possession of firearms against Barredo for lack of evidence.

Tan and Dy were among the inmates who escaped from the Quezon City Jail last Feb. 11, but were recaptured in connection with another kidnapping incident in Antipolo.

The seven men were convicted for the abduction of 11-year old Benjie Oyang and his siblings Benzon, 8; Kevin, 5; and Kayla, 4, as they left their house in Project 4, Quezon City on the morning of Oct. 26, 1998.

The children were kidnapped at gunpoint with their nanny and driver and taken to a safehouse in Rizal. Members of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force found the victims, who were abandoned along with their vehicle, at Tikling in Taytay, Rizal after the Oyang family paid P20 million in ransom.

All six were returned unharmed, according to the Citizens’ Action Against Crime group, which monitored the trial. — Pia Lee-Brago