Kidnapped Rizal trader tortured to death — PNP

The kidnapped businessman whose body was found in Angono, Rizal last May 27 was tortured to death by his captors, police said yesterday.

An autopsy by the Philippine National Police (PNP) crime laboratory showed that the victim, Arturo Picones, 58, sustained fractures in the nose and skull.

Chief Superintendent Ernesto Belen, PNP crime laboratory director, said it would take time before they could determine the cause of Picones’ death because his body was already decomposing when it was found.

"We are considering his traumatic head injuries," said Belen, noting that Picones was one to two weeks’ dead when his body was discovered.

Picones, owner of the Dine-a-Sour restaurant along the Manila East Road in Barangay Pag-asa, Binangonan, Rizal, was abducted by three armed men at about 2:30 p.m. last May 3. Witnesses said Picones was dragged into a waiting vehicle.

The kidnappers demanded a P5-million ransom, but the amount was lowered to P450,000 after a series of negotiations.

Picones’ body stuffed inside a plastic sack was found by a certain Rudy Gatdula in a bamboo plantation in Sitio Bisakol, Barangay San Isidro in Angono.

Belen said only Picones’ lower extremities were intact. He was wearing faded denim shorts, white underwear and a white camisa de chino.

Police also found inside the sack a steel chain with padlock, a pair of handcuffs and an electrical cord.

Picones was hastily buried by barangay officials and local policemen at the Angono municipal cemetery the same day his body was found.

However, Picones’ family decided to exhume the body for identification days after his kidnappers failed to release him despite the payment of ransom.

Belen said the dental records of Picones played a key role in his identification.

The Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER), the PNP’s anti-kidnapping unit, is reportedly investigating the kidnap-slaying.