Charges vs gold bar heist suspect junked

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Citing insufficient evidence, the provincial prosecutor’s office has dismissed charges of robbery in band and multiple murder against a farmer implicated in the P14-million gold bar heist at the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corp. site in Mankayan town last Sept. 24.

The suspect, Joseph Coop, 34, was arrested five days after the incident. He was tagged as one of seven armed men who pulled off the heist and killed an engineer and four security personnel of Lepanto.

Coop’s arrest was based on witnesses’ claims that one of the robbers had a pronounced limp.

Coop’s relatives admitted that he, indeed, limped because a police officer allegedly shot him in the right leg last year.

Some 30 residents of Barangay Banao in Tadian, Mt. Province, including 10 barangay officials, attended the preliminary investigation to prove that Coop was in Tadian when the heist happened. — Artemio Dumlao