Raps filed vs suspect in Geertman rob-slay

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga, Philippines  – A special police task has filed charges of robbery with murder against one of the suspects in the killing of Dutch development worker Wilhelmus JJ Lutz Geertman after a witness positively identified him.

Senior Superintendent Edgardo Tinio, Pampanga police director, refused to reveal the name of the suspect pending his arrest.

“If we divulge his name, the suspect will hide,” Tinio said.

Tinio said the Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Geertman is now hunting down the suspect.

Tinio said a man who witnessed the killing positively identified the suspect as the one who shot the 67-year-old Geertman.

Tinio quoted the witness as saying that the suspect also pointed a short gun at him before fleeing. 

He said the SITG Geertman has two warrants of arrest against the suspect.

Geertman’s friends and colleagues, however, insisted on the angle of extrajudicial killing and demanded an independent investigation.

They alleged that Geertman’s killing was not a simple case of robbery with homicide but a well-planned operation.

They cited Geertman’s work with poor farmers and indigenous groups, mostly in Aurora province.

Geertman was gunned down near the Alay Bahay Inc. office at the L&S Subdivision in Barangay Telebastagan in San Fernando last July 3.

Geertman, together with two companions, had just withdrawn P1.2 million from a bank in Angeles City and had just alighted from their vehicle when he was attacked. The suspects took the money and fled onboard a motorcycle.