The investigators went up the track of the assassination, on October 3, of Percival Mabasa on October 3 after the hitman went to the authorities and revealed the role of several gang leaders within the prison.
by Brice Pedroletti (Bangkok, correspondent in Southeast Asia)
The investigation into the assassination, on October 3, of the animator of Radio Philippin Percival Mabasa as he returned home to the Grand Manila, led to shattering revelations: the alleged sponsor of the attack is none other than the Director General of the Philippin Penitentiary System, Gerald Bantag, indicted on November 7.
According to the National Investigation Office, the FBI “FBI”, the latter sent the order to his assistant, also charged, who then contacted a prison director. The “contract” then went through several gang leaders imprisoned before the intermediary chosen by one of them, also in prison, found outside the killer in pledge, a certain Joel Escorial. However, the latter engaged in the police on October 17 because the surveillance cameras clearly showed his face and because a reward for his capture had been announced. “He feared for his life,” said the investigators. He said he was “remorse”. Ballistic and imprint analyzes have confirmed its role.
m. Escurial then reveals to the police the name of the intermediary who hired him: but he was found dead the next day, on October 18, out of suffocation, in New Bilibid prison, in the Grand Manila, where he was detained . The prison, which welcomes more than 28,000 detainees for an “ideal capacity” four times lower, is also the headquarters of the Correction Office, the agency of the Ministry of Justice in charge of the prison system that Mr. Bantag directed. Joel Escurial then gave other names, including that of Mr. Bantag, and allowed the survey to go up the instructions. The killer had received the equivalent of 9,000 euros for the “contract”.
“clear reason”
The director general Bantag had a “clear reason for executing the murders [of the journalist and the intermediary]”, said on November 7, at a press conference, an official of the Philipines Intelligence Service: The journalist regularly targeted him in his program entitled “Lapid Fire” (a play on words which means “machine gun”), accusing him of corruption and criminal practices.
The Minister of Justice, Jesus Crispin Remulla, said at the same press conference that the discoveries made by the investigators in the prison suggest that it could “shelter a criminal organization”. He evoked the seizure of alcohol, drugs, computers and weapons as well as the presence of thirty corpses to the morgue, without counting suspicious incinerations of body of drug traffickers supposedly died during the epidemic of covid- 19.
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