Boniel faces kidnapping, serious illegal detention charges in court
Government prosecutors filed kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges against Bohol Provincial Board (PB) Member Niño Rey Boniel before a court in Talibon, Bohol yesterday afternoon.
The Office of the Bohol Provincial Prosecutor indicted Boniel for holding captive Angela Leyson, the best friend of his wife Mayor Gisela Bendong-Boniel of Bien Unido town in Bohol.
Lawyer Inocencio de la Cerna Jr., a member of Boniel’s legal panel, said that the PB’s counsels in Bohol decided to withdraw their plea for a preliminary investigation, which would have allowed them to answer the allegations through a counter-affidavit.
He said that the decision came after police charged Boniel with parricide for allegedly killing Gisela in the waters off Caubian Island, Lapu-Lapu City. The offense is non-bailable.
Assistant Prosecutor Aida Digaum-Langcamon then indicted Boniel for kidnapping and serious illegal detention.
Leyson charged Boniel after she and her 17-year-old son were allegedly held by him in the Bien Unido Double Barrier Reef Dive Camp last June 7.
The Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office also elevated to court yesterday the parricide case against the two men who allegedly participated in the murder of the mayor.
The Police Regional Office (PRO) Central Visayas said it is not worried that Roilito “Etad” Boniel and Randel Lupas will face trial, as the criminal case will not affect their testimonies against Boniel, whom they accused as the mastermind behind Gisela’s death.
Lupas and Roilito said they will face the cases and will tell the truth in court.
Swabs of saliva were taken from Gisela’s mother in Davao City. The samples will be used in DNA matching with the bloodstains tak- en from the boat where Gisela was allegedly shot dead by Boniel.
Supt. Romer Daguno, chief of the crime laboratory in Central Visayas, said the matching process will take a week to complete.
The blanket recovered by divers will also be subjected to forensic examination. Roilito and Lupas, however, said that it was not the same blanket used in covering Gisela’s body.
Senior Supt. Jonathan Cabal, Regional Intelligence Division chief, said they welcome the plan of Boniel’s lawyers to ask the Commission on Human Rights to investigate the police’s alleged coercions of witnesses.
Edgar Tapere, Boniel’s driver, said he sought the help of the police for fear of his life. He denied the police threatened him.
Tapere fetched Boniel from Punta Engaño in Lapu-Lapu and drove the PB member to his residence in a posh subdivision in Guadalupe, Cebu City. He worked for Boniel in the past five years.
Boniel allegedly instructed him to deposit the P60,000 in a bank.
The money was withdrawn by Lupas, who gave P30,000 each to Gisela’s staff members—Wilson Hoylar and Brian Sayson.
Hoylar allegedly convinced the mayor to go to Bien Unido for there were several papers to be signed, while Sayson slept with the 17-year-old son of Angela Leyson, Gisela’s friend who witnessed the mayor’s abduction.
Meanwhile, on the 12th day of the search operation, a diver from Bien Unido, Bohol was brought to a health facility after he required decompression.
Diver Mel Quaio reportedly did not notice that his scuba tank was already empty.
The search for the mayor’s body may end this Saturday based on the instruction of Police Regional Office 7 Noli Taliño that the search for Gisela’s body will last for 15 days.