Prosecutor exonerates kidnap suspects

COTABATO CITY — A provincial prosecutor has cleared a town mayor and the former police director of Sultan Kudarat of charges of masterminding the kidnapping early this year of a Korean treasure hunter and his Filipino business partner.

In a 44-page resolution, Sultan Kudarat’s prosecutor, Macabangan Alamada, ruled that there was no evidence that would warrant the prosecution of the respondents, Mayor Labualas Mamansual of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat and Superintendent Abubakar Mangelen for their alleged participation in the abduction and four-month captivity of Korean national Jae Kwon Yoon and Carlos Belonio of Gen. Santos City.

Jae and Belonio, owner of a hotel in Gen. Santos City, were snatched by heavily armed men last Feb. 6 while surveying sites for treasure hunting in Barangay Malisbong, a secluded area in Palimbang.

Alamada, in his ruling dated Nov. 12, 2002, described as "coming from polluted sources" the sworn statements the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Region XII used in implicating Mamansual and Mangelen in the abduction of Jae and Belonio.

Worse, according to Alamada, the testimonies of the witnesses used by the CIDG XII against Mamansual and Mangelen were gathered from the so-called "polluted sources" without the presence of a legal counsel that can confirm their authenticity.

Local officials in Sultan Kudarat had earlier dismissed the charges against the two officials as "politically-motivated," believed to have stemmed from squabbles between Region XII’s now retired regional police director and Sultan Kudarat’s provincial leadership, on who would get credit for working out the release of the victims without any ransom.

Army and police probers have earlier tagged a group of disgruntled Muslim guerillas, who later identified themselves as members of the Abu Sofia kidnap gang, as the real people responsible for the kidnapping of Jae and Belonio.

Mamansual, chairman of the Municipal Peace and Order Council in Palimbang, and Mangelen, who is now based in Camp Crame, said they are convinced that it was for their extensive involvement in securing the separate release, without any ransom, of Belonio and Jae that stirred the suspicions of the region’s former police director and CIDG-XII that they both had a hand in the prolonged captivity of the victims.

Mangelen, then director of Sultan Kudarat’s provincial police, and Mamansual, led a crisis committee that negotiated with the kidnappers, led by a certain Commander Tropical, who first set Belonio free in Glan, a coastal town in Sarangani province last March. Jae was freed on July 1 by his captors in a hinterland spot in Palimbang also through the joint intercession of Mamansual and Mangelen.