4 kidnap suspects killed in shootout

Four suspected members of a kidnapping gang were shot dead in a gunbattle with police in Taytay, Rizal before dawn yesterday.

The firefight broke out after operatives of the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response (PACER) and the Rizal provincial police were tailing the suspects on reports that they were out to stage another abduction.

Four of the suspects died in the shootout while two others managed to escape.

PACER chief Deputy Director General Oscar Calderon identified one of the slain suspects as Peter Sorima, a member of the notorious "Waray-Waray" kidnapping gang who carried a P300,000 bounty on his head for the kidnapping and murder of businessman Arturo Picones in July 2005.

Sorima also has an outstanding warrant of arrest for highway robbery with homicide issued by Alangalan, Leyte metropolitan trial court Judge Norberto Hobayan with no bail recommended.

Calderon said PACER operatives were tailing the suspects who were driving a stolen white and gray Mitsubishi Adventure van (license plate number WTL 324) in Barangay Pinagbuhatan, Pasig City.

PACER operatives had been staking out the supposed hideout of the gang following a tip from an informant in Barangay Ugong, Pasig City.

After sensing they were being followed, the suspects sped toward the boundary of Rizal province. Upon reaching Highway 2000 in Barangay San Juan in Taytay, a firefight broke out in which Sorima, along with three of his cohorts, were killed on the spot.

Four handguns and a hand grenade were later recovered from the scene, police said.

PACER deputy chief for administration Senior Superintendent Leocadio Santiago said two of the slain suspects managed to escape. They are now the subjects of a massive follow-up operation, he said.

"We confirmed reports that the group was behind the Picones kidnapping last year," Santiago said.

Picones was found dead in Angono town several days after he was snatched by armed men while leaving his videoke bar in Binangonan town. — With Cecille Suerte Felipe, Ed Amoroso, AFP