Criminal raps filed vs killers of controversial ex-Jolo police chief

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Investigators filed Friday murder cases against two drug traffickers for the November 21 murder in Sultan Mastura town of the controversial former Jolo police chief Lt. Col. Walter Annayo.

The cases against Rasul Nahang Radja and Nara Kagatan Asula were filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao at the office here of Maguindanao provincial prosecutor Rohaira Lao.

The CIDG-BAR was key player in the Special Investigation Task Group Annayo that the Bangsamoro regional police office organized to put closure to the brutal murder of Annayo, who hailed from Baguio City.

Annayo was police chief of Jolo, capital town of Sulu, when nine of his then subordinate-policemen shot dead in June last year four agents of the Philippine Army’s Intelligence Service Unit whom they construed as drug traffickers.

The incident caused Annayo’s reassignment to the Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao at PRO-BAR’s headquarters in Camp SK Pendatun in Parang, Maguindanao.

Annayo has just alighted from his Toyota Fortuner to buy something from a roadside store in Barangay Macabiso in Sultan Mastura town, while on his way to the PRO-BAR headquarters from Cotabato City, when gunmen in a sports utility vehicle arrived, approached him and opened fire.

The 41-year-old Annayo died on the spot from multiple bullet wounds.

Brig. Gen. Samuel Rodriguez, police director for the Bangsamoro region, said Saturday he is grateful to the CIDG-BAR for having complied with its assignment to identify the killers of Annayo, now subject of criminal prosecution.

Rodriguez said credit also has to go to the intelligence operatives under his office and the officials of the Maguindanao provincial police for cooperating with the CIDG-BAR’s investigation on the incident.

The CIDG-BAR is still trying to validate the identities of five other accomplices of Radja and Asula in the murder of Annayo.

Radja and Asula are reportedly together in a drug syndicate whose operation had suffered setbacks due to extensive police law-enforcement operations that involved Annayo.