Police: Patriotic informants led to kidnapper's arrest

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The police on Monday said that it was for the help of "patriotic informants" that lawmen nabbed in Cotabato City a notorious kidnapper who plotted Thursday’s bloody pawnshop heist in Koronadal City.

Senior Supt. Rolen Balquin, director of the Cotabato City police, told reporters that confidential civilian tipsters led policemen and Army operatives to the hideout of Khadafy Guiamelon, wanted for the deadly noontime robbery of the Agencia Brillantes in Koronadal City last week that left two security guards dead and four others wounded.

“Credit has to go to the confidential civilian informants that provided information on his whereabouts. It was a good show of community-police anti-crime cooperation efforts,” Balquin said.

Sources from the Anti-Kidnapping Group (AKG) of the Philippine National Police said Guiamelon, also known as Commander Pilandok, was arrested at 1 a.m. Sunday at a hideout somewhere along Pansacala Street here.

Guiamelon was also implicated in some 30 abductions in Central Mindanao in years past. He ranked third in the AKG’s list of most wanted Kidnappers in Southern Philippines.

Confidential informants confirmed Guiamelon had also occasionally resided in a slum area behind the MC Square, a small trading complex along Sinsuat Avenue here.

Balquin said the suspect is now undergoing questioning on his  having masterminded the September 18 deadly robbery at the Agencia Brillantes, a pawnshop along Osmeña Street in Koronadal City.

Two security guards were killed while two responding watchmen from nearby establishments were shot and wounded as they tried to prevent the robbers’ escape. Two minors were wounded in the crossfire.

Guimelon and his followers are remnants of Central Mindanao’s once feared kidnapping syndicate led by Abogado Gado, also known as Commander Mubarak, and his notorious henchmen, Kagui Musa Ali and Mayangkang Saguile, who then lead smaller kidnap gangs.

Mubarak, Ali and Saguile, all ethnic Maguindanaons, were tagged in the abduction, in a spate of kidnappings during the early 1990s, of more than 70 people, mostly Chinese traders engaged in big businesses in Central Mindanao.

Mubarak was killed in the summer of 1993 by pursing policemen and Marines in Pantukan, Compostela Valley while Ali, who is from Kabuntalan town in Maguindanao, was shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen near the Cotabato City supermarket area in 1999. Saguile was last reported as already suffering from a debilitating illness.

Balquin said local policemen and agents from the Koronadal City police, operatives of the AKG and the Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Commission, and combatants of the Army’s 5th Special Forces Battalion together arrested Guimelon based on two warrants in connection with kidnapping cases he is facing in courts.

One of the warrants was issued by Judge George Jabido while the other came from the sala of Judge Bansawan Ebrahim of the Regional Trial Court Branches 15 and 14, both in Cotabato City, respectively.