DOJ orders NBI to to fetch suspect Michael Ray Aquino in US

UPDATED 12:00 p.m. - Former police Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino, one of the suspects in the killing of veteran publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000, will soon be back to the Philippines after he fled to the United States a decade ago. In a memorandum issued on June 10, Philippine Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to send two agents who will fetch Aquino in the US before July 3. De Lima said that the US Department of Justice Attaché Robert Courtney has informed her that the US government has already prepared for Aquino's extradition. "US-DOJ Attaché further informs this Department [Philippine DOJ] that the US Marshalls are prepared to transport Aquino from New Jersey, where is detained, to Los Angeles, California, to facilitate his transfer to Philippine law enforcement authorities. Aquino needs to be removed from the US on or before 3 July 2011," De Lima said. Last June 9, Courtney wrote to Philippine DOJ Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras to inform him that the US State Department has signed the surrender warrant for Aquino's return to the Philippines. A copy of the US State Department's surrender warrant was also furnished to media. A portion reads: "Whereas, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines accredited to this Government, has made requisition in conformity with the provisions of existing treaty stipulations between the [US and Philippines] for the mutual delivery of criminals and fugitives from justice in certain cases, for the delivery up of Michael Ray Aquino, charged with the crime of conspiracy to commit double murder, in violation of Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, a crime committed within the jurisdiction of the Philippines." Who is Michael Ray Aquino? Aquino, a former police colonel, is among the lead suspects in the Dacer-Corbito killings. The double murder case filed against them is being handled by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18. Aquino is considered a protégé of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who was a suspect in the case until recently when the Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of the criminal charges against him and the revocation of the arrest warrants issued against him. Lacson used to head the Philippine National Police and the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), the unit that allegedly carried out the Dacer-Corbito killings. Aquino, during his stint in the police force, served under the PAOCTF as head of the unit's operations division. Other members of the group were former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II, who headed the PAOCTF's Task Group Luzon, and former Superintendent Glenn Dumlao, Mancao’s deputy for operations. Michael Ray’s affidavit clears Lacson In an affidavit executed on August 9, 2010 in Hudson County in New Jersey, Aquino said he never received any orders from Lacson to finish off a certain “Delta" and “Bero." "I specifically deny there was any order given to me by then Police Director General Panfilo M. Lacson to liquidate any person, specifically a certain ‘Bero’ and ‘Delta’ sometime in October 2000 or as testified by Mr. Mancao in open court during his testimony in support of his Motion [for] Discharge as State witness ‘sometime in September and early part of October 2000,’" said Aquino. He added that as far as he knows, Lacson "has no personal knowledge about any special operations against any person, much less against a certain ‘Delta’ or ‘Bero.’" Aquino’s former colleague, Mancao, had claimed in his Feb. 13, 2009 affidavit that “Delta" referred to Dacer while “Bero" referred to former police general Reynaldo Berroya, Lacson’s long-time nemesis. - VVP, GMA News