Hong Kong man gets life for kidnapping

A Hong Kong national was meted life imprisonment by a Mandaluyong City regional trial court judge for kidnapping an American citizen four years ago.

Kidnap Watch, a community newspaper based in Binondo, Manila, said Judge Edwin Sorongon sentenced Petrus Yau to life imprisonment for kidnapping American-educated lawyer Alastair Joseph Onglingswan on Jan. 20, 2004.

Sorongon also sentenced Yau’s wife, Susana, to 12 years’ imprisonment for being an accomplice of her husband in kidnapping Onglingswan, who is of Chinese descent.

Yau is also implicated in the kidnapping and murder of Jasper Beltran and the kidnapping for ransom of Aki Khan, a Pakistani with British citizenship.

Court records show that Onglingswan was rescued by Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER) personnel from a safehouse in Bacoor, Cavite on Feb. 11, 2004. Onglingswan is a practicing lawyer and a businessman in the United States. His rescue came 22 days after Yau kidnapped him and demanded from his family a ransom of $600,000 in exchange for his safe release.

Records show that Onglingswan boarded a taxi driven by Yau outside the Makati Shangri-la hotel and asked to be taken to the Virra Mall in Greenhills, San Juan City.

However, while inside the taxi, Onglingswan felt groggy.

When he woke up, he found himself in handcuffs and chains and his head covered with a plastic bag at the safehouse owned by Susana at the Camilla Sorrento Homes in Bacoor.

Aside from the ransom demand, Yau also asked from the victim’s family a daily budget of P20,000 while Onglingswan was in “detention.” The amount was to be deposited in a Metrobank automated teller machine account.

In his testimony, Onglingswan said that when his family failed to deposit P80,000 on his fourth day in captivity, his captors took photos of him and e-mailed them to his girlfriend, Iris, in the US and his father.

He said Yau ordered him to lie face down, placed a piece of wood in his mouth for target practice and fired a caliber .22 rifle at it. The bullet hit the wood, but ricocheted and hit Onglingswan’s right forearm.

The victim also testified that Susana would accompany Yau in bringing him food three times a day.

Yau’s sadistic torture escalated every time Onglingswan’s family failed to update the P20,000 daily deposit, Kidnap Watch said.

But Onglingswan’s brother, Aaron John, claimed they did not make a deposit everyday to bring a message to his captors that their family is not well-off. He said he made a total of eight deposits and received 14 e-mails from the kidnappers, three of which contained pictures of his brother.

Khan’s abductors also used the same modus operandi, including sending video footages, Kidnap Watch said.

Khan’s family paid a huge sum after his captors sent them a videotape showing his ear being cut off. The severed ear was later sent to them.

Beltran’s family, on the other hand, identified Yau as the one who took the ransom money from them. However, Beltran was not released and his fate remains unknown as of press time.

PACER raiders recovered from the Cavite safehouse where Onglingswan was rescued a black jacket owned by Beltran; a certificate of registration of a Suzuki motorcycle, which was believed to have been used by Yau in picking up the ransom money from Beltran’s mother; and a QTEK palmtop cell phone used by Beltran.