AFTER nearly seven years, a Pampanga court yesterday convicted a policeman and an errand boy at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in the kidnap-slay of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo.
Branch 60 of the Angeles City Regional Trial Court sentenced SPO3 Ricky Sta. Isabel and Jerry Omlang to reclusion perpetua, which is equivalent to 40 years in jail, for Jee’s kidnap-slay in 2017.
They were also sentenced an additional 22 to 25 years after being found guilty of abducting Jee’s helper, Marissa Marquicho, and carnapping the businessman’s sports utility vehicle.
Omlang earlier surrendered to the police and confessed to his participation in the crime.
Jee was abducted from his residence in Angeles City, Pampanga and subsequently killed inside Camp Crame. His body was later turned over to a funeral home in Caloocan City.
The kidnap-slay prompted then President Rodrigo Duterte to order a temporary halt to the government’s crackdown anti-illegal drugs trade campaign to curb the excesses of some police officers.
But while Sta. Isabel and Omlang were convicted, the court acquitted the alleged mastermind, Supt. Rafael Dumlao, due to the prosecution’s failure to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
The court previously allowed Dumlao to post bail, explaining that none of the prosecution’s witnesses proved a particular act or acts committed by the police official to establish his complicity in the kidnap-slay of Jee.
Another accused in the case – SP04 Roy Villegas – become a state witness in the case.
State prosecutors junked the cases against former NBI deputy director for investigation services Jose Yap, former NBI-NCR director Ricardo Diaz, former NBI task force against illegal drugs chief Roel Bolivar, Supt. Allan Macapagal and several others in 2017 for lack of probable cause to warrant their indictment in court.
