By NICOLE MANAGBANAG
Correspondent
THE five policemen, accused of abducting 33-year old former overseas worker Enrique Fernandez III, pleaded not guilty to kidnapping during the arraignment in court yesterday morning.
Entering not guilty pleas before Judge Gil Bollozos of the 21 branch of the Regional Trial Court here were Senior Insp. Ereneo Ramirez, chief of the deactivated Crime against Person and Property Desk of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo), and his four men.
Ramirez and the other suspects–SPO2 Jojo Lim, SPO1 Alaindelon Tacubao, PO3 Alejandro Ubanan, and PO2 Sangkula Hussein–are under detention at the city jail in Lumbia.
Alex Cabornay, head of NBI agents handling the Fernandez case, said that given the kind of evidence that the Bureau has, one of the accused might as well cooperate with the prosecution.
He said while it was the suspects’ right to plead for not guilty, “we have substantial evidence to pin down the five.”
The evidence, he said, include the circuit television camera recording that shows Fernandez’s kidnapping and the men who snatched him in upper Carmen in Oct. 23.
Cabornay said the NBI would present the pieces of evidence in court on Jan. 23, 2017.
He said the NBI has yet to determine the whereabouts of Fernandez, and “the suspects can help in our investigation, and may become one of our state witnesses.”
“If they will cooperate with us, their sentence might be lessened or perhaps, they may even be acquitted,” Cabornay said.
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