After checking bus, Robredo says Mendoza may not have been killed by snipers

IIRC members inspect the bullet-riddled Hong Thai bus at a warehouse inside the NCRPO headquarters in Taguig City on Wednesday. Mark D. Merueñas

Rolando Mendoza, the dismissed policeman who held hostage a busload of Hong Kong tourists in Manila last August 23, may not have been killed by snipers as earlier claimed by the police, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo said on Wednesday. In an interview with reporters during his inspection of the bullet-riddled bus, Robredo said a look on the trajectory of the bullets showed that the fatal wounds that killed Mendoza were caused by shots from the assault team and not the snipers stationed at a distance from the ill-fated tourist bus. "It appears na hindi sniper ang nakatama kay Mendoza base doon sa assessment of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). It’s somebody from the other side of the bus," Robredo told reporters after the ocular inspection of the Hong Thai bus at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City. "Most probably iyon ang pinaka-posibleng posisyon kung saan nanggaling ang tama kay Mendoza. Most likely tinira si Mendoza ng sniper at tinira rin sa tabi," he added. (It appears that Mendoza wasn’t killed by snipers based on the assessment of the National Bureau of Investigation. It’s somebody from the other side of the bus. Most probably that’s where the shots that killed Mendoza came from.) Robredo, however, refused to make any further conclusion, saying they have yet to find out which bullet came from what direction and from whose firearm. “Kailangan i-validate kung doon lang ito nanggaling sa assault team or somewhere else (There is a need to validate if the fatal shots came form the assault team or somewhere else)," he said. Robredo said they are also trying to find out why there were no blood splatters inside the bus. He also could not tell yet whether “friendly fire" or shots from the assault team hit the eight hostages who were killed in the hostage tragedy, although the police had said initial findings showed the fatalities were killed by Mendoza based on forensic exams. During the inspection of the bus, driver Alberto Lubang was asked to re-enact crucial moments during the hostage tragedy based from what he saw. Lubang was handcuffed to the steering wheel throughout the 11-hour hostage-taking incident but was able to break free using a nail cutter shortly before the assault was launched against Mendoza.
NBI director Magtanggol Gatdula said they had wanted Lubang to demonstrate how he was able to free himself from the cuffs, but Lubang failed to do so since the type of handcuffs used by Mendoza for him was unavailable. Gatdula also stressed the importance of having members of the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) — the inter-agency panel created to look into the incident — inspect the bus. “Para malaman din nila kung tama ba iyong mga sinasabi ng witnesses sa hearing (This is important so we can compare this to the statements of the witnesses during the hearing)," he said. The NBI official said the government has tapped a foreign firm to make a 3-D animation of the Hong Thai bus for the price of P12 million. He also said the two-man NBI team sent to Hong Kong to gather evidence and testimonies from the survivors of the hostage crisis would be arriving back in Manila on Friday. Members of the IIRC led by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima arrived at the police warehouse inside the National Capital Region Police Office headquarters in Taguig City — where the bus is being kept — shortly before 3 p.m. The team arrived at the warehouse after briefly postponing its ongoing clarificatory hearings at the Department of Justice compound in Manila. The team is expected to return to the DOJ after the inspection of the bus to resume the hearing. — KBK, RSJ, GMANews.TV