By AARON B. RECUENCO and SARAH JANE R. HILOMEN
Elite police and intelligence agents recaptured Wednesday morning a retired police colonel (superintendent) who was implicated in the infamous Maguindanao massacre in November 2009 in a raid in his hideout in Davao City.
Retired Superintendent Adam Piang, former Maguindanao police chief, desperately tried to elude arrest when joint intelligence operatives and members of the elite Special Action Force (SAF) were about to swoop down on his lair but he was trapped later, said Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluña, director of the Central Mindanao Police.
Piang is not included among respondents in the case for multiple murder in connection with the massacre of 57 persons in Ampatuan, Maguindanao but he was earlier arrested and detained over suspicion that the guns seized from him in a raid in his house in Sultan Kudarat were the ones used by some militiamen who perpetrated the crime. However, he escaped last February 16.
Cataluña said his men immediately surrounded a house on Block 30, Lot 8, Gulf View Executive Homes in Bago Aplaya, Davao City early Wednesday after confirming a tip-off that Adam was inside.
“The area was immediately cordoned off pending the application and issuance of search warrant,” said Cataluña.
Sensing the presence of policemen, the official said Adam tried to escape at 5:20 a.m. by climbing over the fence and rooftop of the adjacent apartment but to no avail as all his escape routes have already been sealed off.
Piang was then taken to the nearby police station but the police is hesitant to bring him back to the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Jail.
“The procedure is for the arresting unit to bring him back to the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Jail because that is the order of the (Tacurong City Regional Trial) court,” said Cataluña in a phone interview.
“But we will request the court to transfer his detention to a more secured place... probably in a secured place in Metro Manila,” he added.
The move is to prevent Piang from escaping anew, since it was at the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Jail where he escaped on February 16.
Piang has been ordered detained at the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Jail in Tacurong City by the Regional Trial Court while undergoing trial for a case of illegal possession of firearms and explosives filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).
Piang was supposed to be arraigned on February 19 for a separate case of illegal possession of firearms and explosives filed before another RTC Branch also in Tacurong City.
Aside from the weapons and explosives charges, Piang is also facing 84 counts of malversation of public property in connection with his failure to account for 84 assorted firearms he officially received when he was still provincial director of Maguindanao. The missing firearms items are valued at P2 million.
Police intelligence officials believe that he either sold or issued the missing firearms to the armed goons of the Ampatuans whom he is closely associated.
Another case for malversation of public property was also filed against Piang for his failure to account for several government-owned vehicles of the PNP issued to him as Maguindanao provincial director.
Manila Bulletin
