The .45 caliber pistol seized by police raiders from one of the two suspect’s in the ambush-slay of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin in Quezon City last Dec. 16 turned out to be the same gun used in the politician’s killing, police said yesterday.
A cross-matching examination conducted by the crime laboratory of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Camp Crame on the shells and slugs fired from the .45 caliber pistol recovered from Sunny Taculao matched those retrieved at the Mt. Carmel church where Bersamin and his police bodyguard, SPO1 Adelfo Ortega were killed in an ambush.
“The initial findings of the crime laboratory showed that the shells and slugs fired from the recovered .45 caliber pistol have the same features with those recovered at the ambush site,” an investigator from the Task Force Bersamin told The STAR.
The crime laboratory officials are still determining ownership of the seized gun.
Director Edgardo Doromal, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and concurrent Task Force Bersamin chief is set to reveal this latest development in their investigation on Bersamin’s case anytime this week.
However, Doromal has already briefed PNP chief Director General Avelino Razon Jr. of the crime lab findings in Baguio City on Friday.
Razon ordered Doromal to “get deeper into the case and put behind bars the mastermind in the killings.”
Taculao and his cousin, former La Paz vice mayor Freddie Dupo, were presently undergoing tactical interrogation at the CIDG, a week after they were arrested one after another in the mountains of Baras town in Rizal.
Taculao not only yielded the .45 caliber pistol but also three cellular phones and four SIM cards, said Chief Superintendent Eugene Martin, Cordillera police director.
The seized firearms was immediately sent to the crime lab for cross-matching with the evidence recovered at the ambush site. “The crime lab confirms our suspicion earlier that it was the same gun used in the ambush of Bersamin,” a Task Force Bersamin investigator said.
Martin said Dupo and Taculao identified Gerry Turqueza, 23 , also a native of La Paz town as the triggerman in the slaying of Bersamin.
Turqueza and two other personalities involved in Bersamin’s case are now being hunted.
Martin theorized that after the “hit’ on Bersamin, Dupo and Taculao collected the weapons and cellular phones used by his group in the ambush and brought them for safekeeping in their safehouse in Baras town.
“Dupo admitted gathering the firearms and SIM cards of his group and brought them in their hiding place in Baras,” said Martin.
Earlier, Superintendent Jess Cambay, Cordillera police intelligence chief, said that Dupo and Taculao were armed when his men chanced upon them in a busy street, two days before they were arrested in their mountain hideout.
“My men noticed their waist bulging with firearms,” said Cambay.
Cambay’s men withdrew from the area for fear of endangering the lives of innocent civilians once they engage Dupo and Taculao in a shootout.
However, Dupo was not armed when cornered by combined elements of the Cordillera police and Rizal PNP in a creek in Pinugay, Baras last Sunday.
CIDG investigators are still determining where Dupo deposited his firearm.
During tactical interrogation, Dupo and Taculao admitted their respective roles in the ambush-slaying of Bersamin, including that of Sgt. Rufino Panday, who earlier claimed that former Abra Gov. Vicente Valera masterminded Bersamin’s killing. Panday retracted his statements later.
Valera vehemently denied Panday’s claim. A CIDG investigator claimed that Dupo and Taculao also linked several high-profile politicians in Abra into Bersamin’s killing.