2 suspects in fiscal’s shooting arrested

BINMALEY, Pangasinan — A joint team of the Dagupan City and Binmaley police and the National Bureau of Investigation arrested two suspects in the shooting of a prosecutor here last Tuesday.

Superintendent Rudolph Dimas, Binmaley police chief, said the suspects, Hadji Paras and Ernesto Manaoat, were arrested two hours apart in Dagupan.

Lawyer Niño Orlino, assistant prosecutor of San Carlos City, positively identified the two as his attackers when the police showed him photos of suspected criminals in the province. Another witness corroborated Orlino’s claim.

Orlino was driving his motorcycle on his way home to Lingayen town when two motorcycle-riding men fired at him.

He was shot thrice — twice in the shoulders and once in the abdomen.

When lawmen accosted Paras in front of an elementary school in Dagupan, he tried to shoot it out with them. The policemen were forced to shoot him in the right foot and right side of the abdomen and seized his caliber .45 pistol.

The two suspects denied any involvement in the attack on Orlino, which probers suspect had something to do with the prosecutor’s handling of the case on the 2003 killing of a barangay chairman in Malasiqui town. — Eva Visperas