Zamboanga murder suspect falls, names mastermind

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — One of the two suspects in the robbery and murder of a Lebanese businessman and his Filipina wife was arrested past midnight yesterday in Lantawan town in Basilan.

Police traced suspect Jamil Binasing, 21, at the home of his grandmother in Barangay Subaan, after three informants tipped authorities of his whereabouts.

Binasing, who had dyed his hair from black to blond, admitted killing Fahed Hamdan and his wife Annora, during a press briefing at city hall yesterday.

Binasing named a businessman who operates a carwash in this city as the alleged mastermind.

Mayor Khymer Olaso, who earlier offered a P500,000 bounty for information leading to the couple’s assailants, urged the other suspect to turn himself in.

“It will be better for you to surrender because once you fight, it will be your end,” Olaso said.

He noted that a “shoot-to-kill” order has been issued to pursuing law enforcers, should the suspect resist arrest.

Olaso ordered police to arrest the alleged mastermind.

According to the mayor, Binasing told investigators that he and his accomplice were instructed to cash in P400,000 at the electronic pay center of the Hamdan couple and to “retrieve the money by eliminating them.”

Binasing said they were promised P50,000 each once they had executed the plan.

Lantawan police chief Maj. Abdin Arasa said law enforcers, along with Vice Mayor Omaer Abubakar and members of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade, swooped in on the residence of Binasing’s grandmother at 12:05 a.m. yesterday.

Binasing was identified through a closed-circuit TV footage as the triggerman who shot Fahed and his wife several times after robbing the couple’s printing shop and e-payment center along Pilar Street here.

Aside from presenting Binasing to the media yesterday, Olaso handed the bounty to three informants yesterday.

He also extended assistance to the Lantawan police for helping in the arrest of the suspect.