Japanese shot dead in Batangas

STO. TOMAS, Batangas — The police are hunting down two men who gunned down a Japanese tourist here last Thursday night.

Chief Superintendent Jess Verzosa, Calabarzon (Region 4-A) police director, ordered the Batangas police to identify and arrest the gunmen of Takaaki Yushina, 41, who was billeted at the Diamond Hotel in Ermita, Manila.

Verzosa said Yushina, a real estate agent from Asakusa, Japan, was holder of Japanese passport TEI261193.

Prior to the shooting, the police gathered that he was seen standing at a waiting shed together with two unidentified men in Barangay San Bartolome at about 11:30 p.m.

A few minutes later, a witness, who resides near the area, said he heard three successive gunshots, prompting him to check it out. It was then that he saw a bloodied Yushina sprawled on the ground with a gunshot wound in the head from a caliber .38 revolver.

Verzosa said Yushina’s body was taken to the police crime laboratory at Camp Vicente Lim in Canlubang, Laguna.

Probers still have no clues on the motive behind the killing.

Yushina arrived in the country last July 15 and was scheduled to leave on Aug. 15.

Yushina’s compatriot Yoichi Muramatsu said the victim told him early Thursday night that he was going to bring money to his girlfriend in a place he did not mention, until he was slain here. — Arnell Ozaeta, Cecille Suerte Felipe