Would-be kidnapper identified

CEBU, Philippines - Kidnap try victim Dr. Rico Medina has positively identified a man as one of those who shot at him and his family while they were heading home to Barangay Labangon last Monday dawn.

City Intelligence Branch chief Romeo Santander said Medina told him the man whose photo was shown to him by the police was one of those who tried to kidnap him.

In fact, Medina, Santander said, further revealed that he saw the same man at an uptown hotel the day before he and his family were shot at.

“So makita nga gisundan na g’yud ni siya,” said Santander. They plan to acquire video footage of the suspect from the hotel management.

Santander said the suspected assailant, who hails from Mindanao, was one of those who invested with Medina in Aman Futures, which later turned out to be a scam that victimized thousands of people in the Visayas and Mindanao.

With this information, Santander said they are focusing on the said angle as the motive behind the attack on Medina.

This recent development in the investigation, Santander said, will make it easy for them to identify the assailant’s accomplices since they are coordinating with the police in Mindanao where the suspects come from.

He said they are now preparing to file a case against the suspected assailant.

Medina, his wife Arlene and son Benjie, and their bodyguard Allan Dake, survived unscathed after five men in two cars shot at them repeatedly in Barangay Labangon at past 12 a.m. last Monday.   (FREEMAN)