Bicol’s most wanted shot dead

LEGAZPI CITY — Bicol’s most wanted criminal was killed when he shot it out with a special tracker team of policemen sent to arrest him in Donsol, Sorsogon Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.

Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Tor, Bicol police director, said Julito Leosala, alias Kumander Awa, shot it out with a five-man team led by Donsol police chief Briccio Cordova in front of the house of his 17-year-old common-law wife, with whom he had two children.

"He stood up like Fernando Poe Jr. in the movies and drew his two caliber .45 pistols and fired at the police," Tor said.

Two civilians, Marin Naje and Lorna Naño, suffered slight injuries during the shootout.

Leosala was able to fire five shots before a sniper, seven meters away, felled him with a single shot to the head.

Leosala headed a 15-member criminal syndicate operating in Sorsogon. He was the principal suspect in the 1999 ambush-killing of Pilar, Sorsogon mayor Manuel Sia, husband of incumbent Mayor Rosemarie Sia.

He was also linked to a series of holdups of Chinese-Filipino businessmen and hijackings of softdrink and cigarette delivery vans in the towns of Pilar and Castilla and Sorsogon City in the past three years.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government had offered a P400,000 reward for his capture.

Senior Superintendent Pierre Bucsit, regional police intelligence chief, quoted Leosala as having said that he targeted members of the Chinese-Filipino community as part of his "crusade" against those controlling trade and commerce in Sorsogon.

"He was also known as a Robin Hood in his areas of operations because he shared his loot with villagers," Bucsit said.

Police said Leosala’s brother-in-law claimed his remains Tuesday night. — Celso Amo, Christina Mendez and Rene Alviar