Hubby of Doy Laurel’s kin linked to kidnaps

The husband of a relative of former Vice President Salvador "Doy" Laurel was arrested at his residence in Cainta, Rizal yesterday morning by agents of the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force (NAKTAF).

STAR sources said businessman Isagani Reyno, 32, husband of Laurel’s relative Teresa Platon Reyno, was implicated in two kidnappings.

No details were immediately available about the abductions.

The sources said Reyno, who was arrested on the strength of a court-issued warrant, will be presented to the media today by Deputy Director General Hermogenes Ebdane, NAKTAF chief.

Earlier yesterday, Reyno was believed to have been abducted by at least 12 heavily armed men, on board six vehicles, from his residence on Dinar street at Green Park Subdivision in Cainta.

Mrs. Reyno, 30, is the niece of former Tanauan Mayor Cesar Platon, who ran for the gubernatorial post of Batangas in last year’s national elections but was assassinated during the campaign period.

Teresa, who is five months’ pregnant, told police she, her husband and five children were sound asleep when the armed men’s vehicles stopped in front their house at about 12:15 a.m.

She said the armed men, who brandished Armalite rifles, climbed atop the fence, destroyed the lock of the front door and barged inside their residence.

Some of the armed men gathered the entire household in the sala, while the others went around the house. When they returned to the sala, she said one of the men hit her husband with an Armalite on the forehead, causing it to bleed profusely.

They then ordered her and their five children to lie down facing the floor, Mrs. Reyno said.

Despite her pleadings, she said the men grabbed her husband, placed him inside a sack and tied its end before dumping him inside a van.

Witnesses were able to jot down the license plates of two of the armed men’s vehicles — a white Toyota Revo (WKP 687) and an L-300 van (WTY 202) — and the Cainta police later found them to have been registered in 1999 by the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

This information finally compelled STAR sources to confirm that Reyno was arrested, not abducted as his wife told police.