NBI to investigate Abellana cops: ‘Why did they fail to resist mayor’s killers?’

(SunStar file photo)
(SunStar file photo)

THE Abellana Police Station personnel who accompanied Clarin, Misamis Occidental Mayor David Navarro on the day he was murdered are among the personalities that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 would invite for questioning.

Agents would want to know why they failed to fight back at the masked assailants who killed Navarro on M. Velez St., Cebu City on Friday, Oct. 25, 2019.

NBI 7 Director Tomas Enrile said they have no evidence that points to the police as the culprits behind Navarro’s murder.

“We can only file a case if we already have evidence; our evidence could be either physical evidence or testimonial evidence,” he said.

The Justice department has tasked the NBI 7 to solve the brutal execution of Navarro, after President Rodrigo Duterte announced that he would like the NBI to investigate the town executive’s murder as the police may have had a hand in the ambush-slay.

Motive

The NBI 7 also wants to determine the motive behind the killing. This entails a lot of work and evidence, according to the agency’s officials.

So far, the evidence it got came from the now-defunct Special Investigation Task Group Navarro of the Cebu City Police Office—copies of security camera footage from establishments near the crime scene on M. Velez St. in Cebu City and the empty shells.

NBI 7 Director Tomas Enrile said his investigators will try to trace the persons who sent threats to Navarro.

He was glad that Navarro’s relatives trusted the NBI to conduct the investigation.

The NBI 7 will not only rely on its agents based in its office in Cebu City, said lawyer Antonio Pagatpat, NBI deputy director for regional operation services.

Pagatpat arrived in Cebu on Wednesday, Oct. 30, to lead a case conference.

“We are now in the thick of our probe and, as much as possible, we will come up with the conclusion of this case the soonest,” he told reporters.

Tapping agents

Agents from the NBI provincial units in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental and Tagbilaran City, Bohol will join in the investigation, which Pagatpat described as a “command case.”

Navarro was murdered in police custody last Friday afternoon, Oct. 25 by masked men, who carried long firearms and whose getaway vehicle was a white van.

The mayor was inside the Abellana Police Station’s patrol car, which was transporting him to the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office for the filing of a complaint of slight physical injuries against him. The police escorts failed to hit back as they were outnumbered.

Navarro, who was in Cebu City to attend a workshop, was accused of hurting a male spa attendant last Wednesday night, Oct. 23.

The mayor’s relatives and the Clarin police chief accompanied him on the ride to the Prosecutor’s Office. There were other persons, including a Cebu City cop, who were wounded in the attack.

New reenactment

Just like what the police did, the NBI 7 agents will conduct their own reenactment of the incident. They will also gather other pieces of evidence and interview witnesses.

Pagatpat said there is no reason for them to finish the investigation in haste.

“There’s no pressure felt by us, except that our number one client is the President, who himself gave instructions to investigate this case. This means that it (the investigation) has to be thorough, legal and impartial,” he said.

The NBI will coordinate with other government agencies, including the intelligence community, to gather several evidence and information on Navarro.

Meanwhile, the NBI 7 is willing to coordinate with the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) 7, which complained that the police were often uncooperative with its investigation on human rights abuses allegedly committed by the police, especially during drug busts.

The CHR 7 is also conducting its own inquiry as it wants to know why the police failed to protect Navarro from the assailants.

During the time of then Police Regional Office 7 director Debold Sinas, police records were not accessible to the human rights investigators. (From AYB of SuperBalita Cebu, KAL)

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