RP's Estrada will be summoned over killing

RP's Estrada will be summoned over killing

MANILA (AFP): Philippine Vice-President Joseph Estrada and
Interior Secretary Rafael Alunan will be summoned to give
evidence at an investigation into the killing of 11 suspected
bank robbers, whose deaths were allegedly planned by police
officials, a senate committee said yesterday.

The move to invite Estrada and Alunan follows an admission at
a senate hearing by one of the police generals implicated, Chief
Superintendent Jewel Canson, that he was the "responsible
commander" at the time the 11 men were killed.

However, Senator Rodolfo Biazon said Canson could have
received orders from an official "more senior over him." The
Philippine National Police (PNP) is under the jurisdiction of the
Interior and Local Government Department which Alunan heads.

Estrada will be summoned in his capacity as chairman of the
Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC), whose agents and task
force head Chief Superintendent Panfilo Lacson were linked to the
shooting on May 18.

Controversy shook the police hierarchy when police
investigator Eduardo de los Reyes charged that Canson and Lacson,
along with another police general and a colonel, planned the
murder of the 11 men and made it appear they were bank robbers
slain in a shootout.

De los Reyes said the killing could not have been a shoot-out
as police had reported since the men were in handcuffs after they
were shot in two separate vans by policemen.

Lacson has been ordered to return from the United States to
help the investigation, while the three other police officials
have gone on leave "to preclude any perception that they may
unduly influence the ongoing investigation," said PNP Director
General Recaredo Sarmiento.

De los Reyes' expose is the first such admission by a member
of the police force that "summary executions" were being done by
the PNP.