Bicycle shop worker pins down 2 detained suspects

CEBU CITY — The two suspects in the July 24 ambush-slaying of two Customs officers here got further tied to the crime when a 16-year-old witness identified them from photos as the ones who allegedly robbed an Indian national and made off with his motorcycle, the same one used in the killing.

The teenager, an employee of a bicycle shop in Minglanilla town, was shown photos of Juan Jesus Vergel de Dios and Rustico Fernandez and he positively identified them as the ones who held up Indian national Satnam Lal last June 7 in Barangay Tiber, also in Minglanilla, and made off with his motorbike, a Yamaha 125 cc.

Reynaldo Esmeralda, regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) which is investigating the case, refused to identify the teener for security reasons.

The teener’s parents brought him to the NBI to issue a sworn statement.

Esmeralda said the witness identified Vergel de Dios as the one who allegedly held up Lal with a caliber .45 pistol wrapped in a face towel and Fernandez as the man with the white cap who allegedly drove the motorbike when they made their escape.

Esmeralda said the statement issued by the new witness strengthened the NBI’s case against Vergel de Dios and Fernandez, who stand charged with triple murder, frustrated murder, car theft and robbery.

Aside from Eduardo Lao, the Customs deputy district collector at the time he was slain, and Bennet Soreno, an examiner, a high school senior, Allan Dave Ravina, was also killed in the ambush along Osmeña Boulevard, by a stray bullet which hit his head.

The statement of the teen witness corroborated that of Lal himself, who earlier also identified Vergel de Dios and Fernandez from photos as the ones who robbed him of his motorbike in Minglanilla.

Esmeralda said another witness is expected to surface to also identify the two suspects who are now detained at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center.

Vergel de Dios earlier admitted having been allegedly hired by another Customs examiner to kill Lao for a fee of P5,000. He, however, later recanted, claiming he was merely pressured to make the admission.

The NBI believes Lao was the intended target and that Soreno merely happened to be in Lao’s car when the ambush took place.

The NBI also believes that the ambush had something to do with the seizure, ordered by Lao, of 10 container vans of rice smuggled from Singapore.

Two of the vans were spirited out of the Cebu International Port while in Customs custody allegedly through the machinations of Fernandez, who hired two dockhands to load the vans onto a waiting truck.

Fernandez claimed that higher Customs officials he did not name had knowledge of the operation. — Freeman News Service