2 Japanese tagged in gunslaying of compatriot

STO. TOMAS, Batangas — The police have filed murder charges against two Japanese nationals tagged as responsible for the killing of their businessman-compatriot here last month.

Charged were Yoshiyuki Tsukada, 47, and Yoichu Muramatsu, 57, both business associates of the victim, Takaaki Yushina, who was found dead with a bullet wound in the head in Barangay San Bartolome here last July 28. The case was filed last Friday.

The two suspects, believed to belong to the Japanese Yakuza criminal gang, however, managed to slip out of the country a day after the killing.

Chief Inspector Raul Tacaca, Sto. Tomas police chief and head of Task Force Yushina, said a witness positively identified the two suspects as the ones walking away from the scene after three successive gunshots were heard.

The witness identified the two Japanese through their passport pictures, Tacaca said.

"We have at least six more witnesses who would corroborate each other and pinpoint our suspects," he said.

In his report to Senior Superintendent Francisco Don Montenegro, Batangas police director, Tacaca said Muramatsu, Tsukada and his Filipina wife conspired to kill Yushina in a Laguna country club last July 26.

But the plot did not push through when an employee of the country club overheard suspected guns-for-hire aboard a Tamaraw FX and a green van talking about the plan to kill Yushina.

Thanks to the employees, Yushina managed to slip out the following morning after he was kept in a safehouse.

But as it turned out, Yushina was followed as he was about to visit his girlfriend here. He was last seen alive standing, together with Tsukada and Muramatsu, in a waiting shed in Barangay San Bartolome here at about 11:30 p.m. of July 28.

The police theorized that the suspects wanted to gain control of their real estate venture with Yushina in Japan.