Police check cellphone, SIM cards used by Bersamin slay suspects

Police investigators have started deciphering the cellular phones and SIM cards seized from the two arrested suspects in the gunslaying of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin in Quezon City last Dec. 16 to gather additional evidence.

“We wanted to know the persons the suspects are constantly contacting and their text mates, especially on and before Dec. 16 when Bersamin was ambushed,” said Superintendent Jess Cambay, Cor­dil­lera police intelligence chief.

Cambay said they are also determining the persons listed in the cellular phones and SIM cards phone books and who among them are frequently in contact with the two suspects, former La Paz vice mayor Freddie Dupo and his cousin, Sunny Taculao.

Dupo and Taculao have mentioned the names of a former mayor and a brother of a former congressional candidate as their group’s “go between” with the mastermind in the slayings of Bersamin and his police bodyguard, SPO2 Adelfo Ortega in front of the Mt. Carmel church in Quezon City.

Cambay said they are also searching whether the names of the ex-mayor and his companion and other high-profile personalities mentioned by Dupo and Taculao were listed in the recovered evidence.

The two cellular phones and four SIM cards and a .45 caliber  pistol were among the pieces of evidence seized from Taculao when he was arrested two weekends ago in a hut in the mountains of Baras, Rizal.

A day later, Dupo was arrested in a creek in Pinugay, when he made a mistake of returning to the hut.

Cambay said they are also determining who the persons Dupo and Taculao were in frequent contact while in hiding, including those who send them a sack of rice and other food stuff which led the Cordillera police in their hideout.

According to Cambay, they have a diagram of the persons most likely Dupo and Taculao were contacting before and after Bersamin’s slaying and while they were in hiding, and the phone book would help confirm their hunch.

The Cordillera police intelligence chief said the two cellphones and SIM cards were turned over to a unit of the Philippine National Police (PNP) which has the technical capabilities to decipher them. The said PNP unit has yet to forward to the Cordillera police the results of their work on the recovered evidence.

Cambay said Dupo also turned down offers of two lawyers sent by an Abra politician to represent him and his cousin in the Bersamin slay.

“The two lawyers paid Dupo and Taculao a visit in their detention cell. Dupo politely told them that their help is not needed as of this time,” said Cambay quoting a policeman privy to the conversation of the detainee and his two lawyer visitors.

The two lawyers, he said, were the same ones who worked for Sgt. Rufino Pan­day’s retractment of his statements linking former Abra Gov. Vicente Valera to Bersamin’s slay.

Valera has vehemently denied the charges.