Korean consul says charges are fabricated

A Korean consul branded the charges filed against him and three Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) agents with the Office of the Ombudsman as lies meant to delay the deportation of four Koreans, including two fugitives, suspected to be members of an international passport fraud syndicate.

Consul Gyung Taek Cha, police attaché of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea, said the arrest of Jae Ho Park, Kyung Hee Kim, Seok Joon Ahn, and Gun Choi, last March 21 and 22 in Makati City was the result of thorough legitimate police work and considerable evidence against the suspects.

Cha said all four were named by Chinese nationals of ethnic Korean origin, arrested at the airport for carrying fake Korean passports, as the ones who provided them with the spurious travel papers.

The consul said that when Ahn, later found to be a fugitive facing charges of passport forgery and assault back in Korea, was arrested in Makati City last March 21, he was handing over a fake Korean passport to a police asset.

Park, he said, also a fugitive, faces economic sabotage charges in Korea.

Cha said the four, all detained at the BID detention center in Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig, filed the trumped-up and fabricated charges to cow him into not turning over damning evidence against them to the Korean National Police and avoid deportation back home where they will surely land in jail.

The detainees had accused Cha and BID agents Col. Lino Calingasan, Winnie Quidato and Dante Atienza of maltreating and torturing them.

Cha revealed that the four hired a battery of lawyers, including a former associate commissioner of the BID, to ensure that they avoid deportation to Korea. – Rainier Allan Ronda