Govt to check kidnap syndicates' links to public officials

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) are set to form a fact-finding investigating panel that will look into allegations that kidnapping syndicates are in connivance with government officials. At a news briefing on Tuesday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said that like carnapping, kidnapping would not have grown as a criminal activity without the aid of public officials. "This must be with either the involvement, operation, assistance, acquiescence, blessing, or at the very least, knowledge of law enforcers and government officials," said De Lima. The Justice chief said reports and complaints from "certain personalities" in Maguindanao prompted her to initiate the creation of a DOJ-DILG task force. She added she will create an internal DOJ panel that will audit kidnapping cases that may have been dismissed "due to dubious or questionable circumstances." De Lima said that panel will make an inventory of the dismissed cases and who are the prosecutors handling them. Carnapping Last week, the DOJ and DILG created a joint task force that will check whether carnapping syndicates have cohorts in the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation. [See: Govt to form team to check carjack gangs' ties to law enforcers] She also created a separate all-female DOJ team that will audit carnapping cases involving the Dominguez Carnapping Syndicate. The group is allegedly behind the abduction and killing of car dealers Venson Evangelista and Emerson Lozano. The charred remains of Evangelista, Lozano and driver Ernani Sencil were found separately in Central Luzon last January. The group's leader, Raymond Dominguez, has denied having a hand in the three killings. — Sophia Dedace/RSJ, GMANews.TV