A former senior Philippine police official accused of double homicide nine years ago was extradited from the US yesterday after agreeing to testify in a case implicating an opposition senator.
Cesar Mancao, who was arrested last year near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will be asked to affirm his affidavit linking his former police boss, Senator Panfilo Lacson, to the kidnapping and slaying of Salvador “Bubby” Dacer, a publicist who represented top political figures, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said.
Lacson has denied any involvement.
Dacer’s clients included ousted Philippine president Joseph Estrada, who also denied any hand in the publicist’s murder.
Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, were snatched from a Manila street in 2000. They were later found strangled in a creek bed. Their bodies had been doused with gasoline and burned.
Investigators identified their corpses using dental records.
The elite police unit said to be responsible for the killing, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force headed by Lacson, was later disbanded.
Gonzalez said Mancao may turn a state witness but will first have to face preliminary investigation. He said Lacson may be subpoenaed depending on the investigation.
Apart from Mancao, Philippine authorities have charged another former police official, Glenn Dumlao, and 20 other officers with double homicide.
US court papers say Dumlao confessed his participation in the slaying to investigators in the Philippines in 2001.
He was scheduled to appear as a star witness at a trial but instead fled the country. He also was arrested last year near New York, where he was working as a house cleaner and like Mancao was not contesting his extradition to the Philippines.
It was not clear when Dumlao would be sent back to Manila.
Another suspect still in the US is Michael Ray Aquino, who is fighting the Philippine extradition request.
He has been in prison since his arrest in 2005 on unrelated charges of accepting documents from a former US Marine who once worked as an aide to US vice presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney.
Prosecutors alleged the documents were stolen as part of a plot to overthrow Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Aquino pleaded guilty in 2007 and was sentenced to 76 months in prison, but it was later reduced to the time Aquino served. He remains in custody until the extradition case is resolved.
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