Suspect in 2019 Laguna murder arrested in far-flung Lanao del Sur

COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro regional police will soon turn over to the Laguna Provincial Police Office a suspect in the brutal 2019 murder of a resident of Biñan City, arrested by policemen and soldiers in Barangay Buadi Didingun in Taraka, Lanao del Sur last week.

The detained suspect, Esmael Sultan, a Maranao, was implicated in the killing of Karl Laurence Demerey in Binan City in June 2019.

Two other accomplices of Sultan, both Maranaos too, had been arrested by operatives of the Biñan City Police Office after the incident.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Jaime Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters on Monday, October 28, that the operation that led to the arrest of Sultan in Barangay Buadi Didingun in Taraka was assisted by troops from the Army’s 5th Infantry Battalion under Lt. Col. Eduard Sia-ed.

Macapaz said Sultan voluntarily yielded when combined personnel of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and the Taraka Municipal Police Station and soldiers from the 5th IB arrived at his hideout in Barangay Buadi Didingun and showed him a warrant for his arrest from the Regional Trial Court Branch 152 in Biñan City in Laguna, signed by Judge Jaime Banatin. 

Macapaz said they would endorse Sultan, via the police in Laguna, to the court that ordered his arrest.