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.