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‘Why seek Batasan witness at my home?’
MANILA, Philippines -- Anak Mindanao party list Representative Mujiv Hataman questioned why policemen allegedly went to his Quezon City home early Monday afternoon looking for a key witness to the November 2007 bomb attack on the House of Representatives who escaped police custody earlier in the day.
Hataman said the visit to his home at Filinvest 2 subdivision by seven men who introduced themselves as agents of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) indicated the unit “still has doubts” about him, despite having been cleared of involvement in the explosion that killed Basilan Representative Wahab Akbar and three other persons..
Hataman and his brother Jim, who were among those originally charged with multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder for the blast, were cleared after police could not find probable cause implicating them.
"They should have given me at least some courtesy given that there is already a court ruling clearing me," Hataman told reporters.
However, in a phone interview, newly installed CIDG-National Capital Region director Senior Superintendent Isagani Nerez said he had not dispatched anyone to Hataman's house.
But while promising to look into Hataman’s complaint, Nerez said “there is nothing wrong” with police operatives visiting the solon’s house to ask questions.
“Wala naman masama dun hindi ba [There’s nothing wrong with that, is there]?” he asked.
CIDG director Chief Superintendent Raul Castañeda, in a separate interview, also said it “appears impossible” for policemen to have gone to Hataman’s home.
Hataman said the men who went to his house at around 12:35 p.m. introduced themselves to his wife as CIDG officers and said they were looking for Indama.
They were led by an Inspector Ed Fernandez. Fernandez who said he had gone to the solon’s home on orders of a certain Dumalinao or Malinao, the congressman said.
The party-list solon, who was at a meeting between House minority members and Speaker Prospeero Nograles, said he had asked his wife to let him talk to the men on the phone and asked about the purpose of the visit.
Hataman said he has no reason to shelter Indama.
Nerez said he has deployed CIDG personnel to different “points of entry” across Metro Manila, including sea and airports, to make sure Indama does not leave the capital region.
Indama allegedly escaped police custody 6 a.m. today while taking a showed inside the CIDG-NCR in Camp Crame, Quezon City.
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