Brit tagged in arms smuggling gunned down in Angeles City

ANGELES CITY, Philippines  – Two days after an American was shot dead in Barangay Pampang here, a 50-year-old British national was also gunned down while his Filipino wife was critically wounded in Barangay Pulong Maragul last Tuesday afternoon.

The victim, Bruce Anthony Jones, was tagged as the captain of a 2,400-ton Panama-registered ship found with 54 high-powered firearms some 500 meters off the shores of Mariveles, Bataan in July last year.

Jones’ wife, identified as Maricel Aramay Jones, 25, was reported to be in serious condition at the Angeles University Foundation Medical Center here.

This, even as police remained clueless on the two motorcycle-riding men who shot dead American James Basham, 63, as he was about to board his motorcycle in the city’s public market last Sunday morning. Basham was a former policeman from Texas who was also married to a Filipina.

Police said Jones’ killers, who were also riding a motorcycle, caught up with him and his wife as they were cruising Don Jose street at Don Bonifacio Subdivision on their Mitsubishi Lancer. Jones died from multiple bullet wounds from a caliber .45 pistol.

Police said Jones and his wife, who resided in New Cabalan, Olongapo City, were here to shop at the Marquee mall and visit a firing range at the Clark Freeport. They had already shopped and were on their way to the firing range when they were attacked.

Jones’ wife told police at the hospital that her husband had been receiving death threats lately and that strangers had been seen near their house in Olongapo and also tailing him.

Probers said Jones was believed to be the captain of M/V Captain Ufuk, a cargo vessel which tried to smuggle firearms through the port of Mariveles, Bataan in July last year.

Fifty-four high-powered rifles worth P25 million were found on the vessel. Customs intelligence agents suspected that some politicians could have “ordered” the Israeli-type Galil assault rifles from an international gunrunning syndicate as part of their preparations for the elections in May this year.

Although Galils are usually made in Israel, the ones seized from the Panamanian ship were all made in Indonesia.

After the vessel was found, its 13 Georgian crewmen claimed that their captain was Lawrence John, a South African who was detained with them, although it later turned out that Jones, the real captain, had already abandoned the ship.

The guns were kept in four wooden crates in the cargo hold, while another crate contained slings, magazines and bayonets for some of the firearms.

Also found were 15 empty wooden crates, prompting authorities to suspect that their contents had already been unloaded.

Documents recovered from the vessel showed that the ship left a port in Turkey and had brief stopovers in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Cases of smuggling and violations of maritime and immigration laws were filed against the arrested foreigners.  – With Ric Sapnu