A LAGUNA court has set the pre-trial hearing on the criminal complaint filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against three police officers in relation to the alleged abduction of an e-sabong (online cockfight) agent from his home in August 2021.
The San Pablo City Regional Trial Court Branch 29 said it will begin the proceedings in the case of Ricardo “Jonjon” Lasco who has been missing for nearly two years now.
Expected to take the stand as the prosecution’s first witness is Lasco’s wife, Princess, who witnessed the abduction of her husband at their residence in Barangay San Lucas, San Pablo City on August 30, 2021.
Lasco was supposedly forcibly taken by three Laguna policemen who have been identified as Ssgt. Daryl Paghangaan and Patrolmen Roy Navarete and Rigel Brosas. The three have been indicted for robbery and kidnapping of Lasco.
The complaint sheet said the three cops introduced themselves as agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) when they raided the house of and arrested Lasco.
During the raid, the cops allegedly took several valuables, including luxury watches, jewelry and a vault containing cash, amounting to more than P10 million.
The DOJ prosecutors rejected the cops’ defense that they were somewhere else at the time when Lasco’s residence was raided.
It was the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Special Investigation Task Force Sabungero which unmasked the identifies of the involved policemen.
