Sulu poll official survives gun attack, brother hurt

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A brother of a senior election official in Sulu sustained a bullet wound in the head when two men riding a motorcycle together opened fire at their vehicle while in a busy thoroughfare in Barangay Sta. Maria in Zamboanga City on Saturday morning, December 21.

Officials of the Zamboanga City Police Office and Brig. Gen. Bowenn Joey Masauding, director of the Police Regional Office-9, told reporters at about an hour after the incident that the lawyer Vidzfar Amil Julie, 51, provincial supervisor of the office in Sulu province of the Commission on Elections, survived the attack unscathed.

His 57-year-old brother, Nasser, who sustained a bullet wound in the head, was immediately rushed to a hospital by emergency responders for treatment.

Police investigators and relatives of Julie are certain it was him who was the target of their motorcycle-riding attackers, who immediately sped away amid the commotion triggered by the gunshots that reverberated through the scene.

The gunmen also repeatedly shot the rear left tire of Julie’s Toyota Fortuner before they motored away, crippling the vehicle.