Probe body clears police official over ‘carnap ties’

Police Director Roberto Rosales has been cleared of any involvement in carnapping activities by an inter-agency investigating committee. “I will admit that General Rosales is not in our radar," said Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo in an interview with reporters on Tuesday. The investigation is being carried out by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). Rosales, currently the head of the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations-Northern Luzon, was tagged as protector of the Dominguez carnapping group, which is implicated in the high-profile killings of three people, two of them car traders, last January. The leaders of the group, Roger and Raymond Dominguez, are currently in jail for the abduction and subsequent killings of Emerson Lozano and his driver Ernani Sencil, and Venson Evangelista. Rosales’ name was reportedly mentioned in a military intelligence report on carjacking gangs and their alleged protectors in the police force. But according to Robredo, there was no such report. “I asked the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) about the supposed intelligence report and they said there was none, and even my formal and informal sources said that such report does not exist," he said. The supposed intelligence report was cited as source in a Philippine Daily Inquirer report dated Feb. 6, 2011 naming Rosales as the top police official involved in carnapping. The newspaper, particularly its reporter Arlyn dela Cruz, insisted that the military report exists. According to the report, a dismissed policeman, former Superintendent Nap Cauyan, had linked Rosales to the Dominguez group. Robredo said Cauyan, who is accused of being the middleman between carnapping syndicates and ranking police officials, is not yet off the hook as his name appeared in various reports submitted to the inter-agency committee. Rosales had earlier admitted knowing Cauyan, whom he said had provided him with unsolicited information about carnapping syndicates when he was still the director of the National Capital Region Police Office. He, however, said Cauyan has never been assigned to any of the unit he led. Sought for comment, Rosales said he has long anticipated that he will be cleared by any investigating agency regarding his supposed link to carnapping syndicates. “That is expected. Even the day the news broke out, I am very confident that I will be cleared because there is no evidence and everybody knows that it is not true," he said. - KBK, GMA News