DOJ summons Lacson over kidnap of 2 Hong Kong nationals

Besides facing a double murder case, another set of charges is hounding fugitive Senator Panfilo Lacson. The Department of Justice on Monday issued a subpoena summoning Lacson to attend the preliminary probe on the kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges filed by former intelligence agent Mary “Rosebud" Ong. State Prosecutor George Yarte Jr. issued the subpoena ordering Lacson and several other members of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) to attend the preliminary investigation on March 11. GMANews.TV tried to reach Lacson’s lawyer, Alex Avisado, for comment but he was unavailable as of posting time. Lacson headed the PAOCTF when he was still Philippine National Police chief from 1999 to 2001. Ong, Remis Garganera of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp), and six other witnesses claimed PAOCTF members were behind the abduction of two Hong Kong nationals accused of being members of a drug syndicate. The two men were identified as Chong Hiu Ming and Wong Kam Chong, who were kidnapped on December 1998 and March 1999, respectively. The two men were reportedly members of a drug syndicate. Ong and the other complainants said that “despite the payment of huge ransoms, the two [kidnap victims] were never released to their relatives and are still missing." Among the pieces of evidence in the case included a document “confirming the fact that the missing nationals were indeed the subjects of cooperation between the PNP-PRO4 and the PAOCTF on the one side and the HK Narcotics Bureau on the other," the police said. The document of affirmation given by Detective Senior Supt. To Hon Ki Bernard would supposedly prove that the missing victims were being monitored by the PAOCTF and Hong Kong’s Narcotics Bureau. Fugitive Prior to the DOJ’s subpoena, Lacson was already the subject of a global manhunt over the double murder charges he was facing at the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 26. Lacson fled to Hong Kong last January 5, two days before the Justice Department filed the charges against him. The court issued the arrest warrant a month later. The opposition senator admitted that he left the Philippines to escape what he said was an “evil conspiracy" between the DOJ and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. On Monday, the National Bureau of Investigation said Lacson was no longer in Hong Kong. “He had left Hong Kong and we have already confirmed this information. We also received information that he fled to another country, which we cannot yet disclose because we have to validate this information," said NBI director Nestor Mantaring. - GMANews.TV