Charges readied vs GTK hit men

Charges of frustrated murder is set to be filed against the son of a former communist rebel hit squad leader and a companion in connection with the July 1 assassination attempt on sports patron Go Teng Kok.

During a confrontation at the Western Police District intelligence office yesterday, a witness positively identified Lejun de la Cruz, son of Nilo de la Cruz, former head of the Alex Boncayao Brigade, as the triggerman in the failed assassination.

Two other witnesses identified Arnold Salazar, who was arrested with the younger De la Cruz last Sunday, as the driver of the motorcycle used in the slay attempt.

The younger De la Cruz welcomed the filing of charges in court by the WPD, saying this will allow him to prove his innocence.

His father, who was with his son to provide moral support, said his group’s peace agreement with the government may be imperiled after police detained him, his son Lejun and Salazar, without any warrant.

De la Cruz said plainclothes policemen apparently wanted to arrest Salazar after they arrived at the Manila Domestic Airport from Kalibo, Aklan, for alleged involvement in an armed encounter with government troops in Nueva Ecija.

He said when they reached the police station, they found out there was no warrant even for Salazar’s arrest. He said police then tried to link his son Lejun to the ambush attempt on Go, a powerful member of the Philippine Olympic Committee.

Police took De la Cruz in for trying to intervene, he said.

"They had only one target, but the problem is they accosted all of us, then they refused to identify themselves and there was no formal invitation, so we resisted and they pinned us down," De la Cruz told Manila radio station dzBB.

"At first they claimed that some of us were involved in a Nueva Ecjia encounter. Verification showed that we were not. Later they linked us to the Go Teng Kok ambush," De la Cruz said.

They were detained at Western Police District headquarters in Manila but were released at around 3 a.m. yesterday after their lawyers interceded.

"They gave an undertaking through their lawyers that the two would be available if we need them in the course of our investigation on the Go assassination," said Superintendent Edgar Danao, chief of the WPD’s intelligence and investigation division.

"The father and son were together when they arrived at the Centennial terminal from Aklan, so we informed Lejun of the charges. Nilo de la Cruz accompanied his son," Danao said.

"We need to talk to review the viability of the peace process. They are not respecting our safe-conduct passes," De la Cruz said.

Danao denied there was any political persecution. "We don’t have any intention of interfering in the ongoing peace negotiation. It has nothing to do with political affiliation. We were tasked to go after the assassins of Go, which we did," he said.

"We did not know that they have links with the ABB when we started tracking down the suspects, who stayed in Manila for less than two weeks after the ambush," Danao said.

He added that they have three witnesses who positively identified the younger De la Cruz and Salazar as Go’s attackers. The two men denied any involvement. "We used the testimonies of our witnesses as basis of our operations," Danao said.

Two men on board a motorcycle shot Go outside the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila as he waited for a security guard to open the gate going to the office of the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association. He was shot in the cheek and survived.

The ABB, an urban death squad of the New People’s Army, killed over 100 alleged rogue policemen and officials in the late 1980s.

De la Cruz’s group later split from the NPA and formed the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-ABB, which reached a preliminary peace agreement with the government in 2000.

Lejun de la Cruz is the group’s deputy secretary general.

De la Cruz holds a safe-conduct pass as a member of a rebel peace panel, said Teresita Deles, chairman of a joint committee with the government monitoring the enforcement of the peace agreement.

"I will already establish that the arrest of Nilo de la Cruz was out of place," Deles said in a television interview.

But she added that she will find out the circumstances of the other arrests.

Arturo Tabara, chairman of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army, said De la Cruz’s arrest was a violation of the ceasefire agreement and that they have raised their protest to the government. — With AP, Antonietta Lopez