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CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna -- Police have identified a former soldier as the leader of the group that abducted a dentist from his house in Victoria, Oriental Mindoro last Tuesday night, police said Friday.

Chief Superintendent Louie Palmera, Mimaropa (Mindanao, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) police director, identified the suspect as JR Aquino, a dismissed member of the Philippine Army.

Palmera said victim Dr. Gregorio Hora positively identified the suspect as among the seven masked men who forcibly seized him from his residence in Barangay (village) Poblacion 2, Victoria.

He said Aquino also had two pending cases for rape before the local court in Victoria town.

He said aside from the victim, Aquino was identified by a certain Charing Sanchez Villanueva as the brains behind the kidnapping of Hora.

Villanueva, 47, is the caretaker of the apartment in nearby Naujan town where Hora was rescued by policemen almost 15 hours after he was taken by the suspects.

"Our problem is that the caretaker has refused to cooperate with us. But we believe we have a strong case against Aquino. He's the primary suspect in this case," Palmera told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Senior Superintendent Agripino Cruz, Mindoro Oriental police director, said they have considered the case solved with the identification of the supposed mastermind of the kidnapping.

Aside from Aquino, Cruz said they have also come up with the artist's sketches of the four alleged abductors of Hora.

He said they would immediately file a case of kidnapping against Aquino and the four other John Does.

Cruz said Hora knew Aquino personally as the suspect had been supplying him with animal feeds for his farm since last year.

"Dr. Hora said he saw Aquino as the man who was standing right beside the vehicle of the men who took him," Cruz said in a mobile phone interview.

Hora, 48, was abducted by several bonnet-wearing men at around 8 p.m. Tuesday. He was taken to at least two safehouses of his kidnappers in the adjacent town of Naujan before he was rescued.

The kidnappers initially demanded P3 million as ransom from the victim's wife who negotiated for it to be lowered to P2 million.

Hora's abductors also stole a still undetermined amount of money, jewelry, and his Wrangler Jeep and motorcycle.

The victim was eventually found by pursuing policemen shortly after they recovered his vehicle in Barangay Balite, Naujan town.

Palmera said the setting up of checkpoints all over the area and their intensified pursuit operations might have forced the kidnappers to abandon the victim.

"Apparently, the doctor's abductors decided to abandon him after they felt the pressure of our pursuit operations. They probably let him go to avoid being arrested," Palmera said in an earlier interview.

Source: Inquirer.Net  

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