Carjack suspect tagged in Ateneo student’s kidnap

MANILA, Philippines - A witness has identified a man arrested for carjacking a former lawmaker’s sport utility vehicle last week as one of the men who kidnapped a student of Ateneo de Manila University in November last year, an official said yesterday.

“We are talking with the victim’s family for the filing of additional kidnapping charges against the suspects,” Quezon City Police District (QCPD) director Chief Superintendent Richard Albano said.

QCPD deputy director for administration Senior Superintendent Joel Pagdilao said the witness identified Noel Dellosa when he saw the suspect at Camp Karingal, where he and three others were detained after their arrest for carjacking Mat Defensor’s Toyota Land Cruiser.

Investigators are still trying to determine who were with Dellosa in the abduction of the student.

Chief Inspector Rodel Marcelo, head of the QCPD Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said the witness had seen Dellosa in Marikina inside the victim’s car, which the suspects had commandeered when they snatched the 20-year-old student at the north parking area of the Ateneo campus on the night of Nov. 21, 2013.

On that day, the student had gone to school to submit some requirements. It was some hours later that the family reportedly received a call from someone claiming to be a professor and demanding P50,000.

The family again received another call and with it a demand for P250,000. It was at this point that the family reported the matter to the police. Since there was a ransom demand, the case was referred to the Anti-Kidnapping Group. The student was later on released unharmed and reportedly without any ransom paid.

On Thursday last week, policemen intercepted Dellosa, Alvin Ignacio, Dennis Valdez, and Gonzalo Terado after they drove off with Defensor’s Land Cruiser, with the former lawmaker’s driver still in the car, in Loyola Heights.

Albano said they had been hot on the trail of Ignacio’s group after he was tagged in a series of other heists, including that of political science professor Perlita Frago-Marasigan on Oct. 16 last year.

Ignacio was also reported to have robbed the passengers of a UV Express van along Commonwealth Ave-nue in July last year. A policeman who was driving to work engaged the suspects in a shootout.