CCPO had no hand in attack: Osmeña
Are the police behind the ambush of Wellington Lim, brother of controversial businessman Peter Lim?
If speculations are true, Mayor Tomas Osmeña is confident that the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) did not have a hand in the attack.
“It’s not the CCPO. I’m very confident on that. If it’s police or law enforcement, it’s not CCPO,” he told reporters.
The mayor’s pronouncement was in response to Peter’s earlier statement that the unidentified assailants used high-powered firearms and vehicles usually issued to the Philippine National Police.
The businessman’s camp, though, has since denied accusing the police of being behind the ambush.
A security guard was killed and three others were wounded when unidentified gunmen with an M16 rifle fired at the Infinity KTV and Music Lounge past midnight Saturday.
The establishment on Archbishop Reyes St. in Barangay Kamputhaw is owned by Peter.
Mayor Osmeña said that there is a possibility that a policeman was behind the attack, but one who’s not under the CCPO.
“Not CCPO policemen. There are groups like CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group), I don’t know. (Police) Regional (Office), I don’t know. There are also here in Cebu City, could be a highway patrol, I don’t know,” he said.
“The killers of (lawyer Noel) Archival were policemen. That’s the highway patrol. But I’m pretty sure, I feel confident that it’s not the CCPO. (CCPO Director Joel) Doria and his people are very conservative,” Osmeña added.
In 2014, four of the five Highway Patrol Group (HPG) 7 officials implicated in the ambush of Archival were removed from their posts.
But Osmeña clarified that it would be highly speculative to say that a law enforcement unit was indeed behind the attack on Wellington, that’s why the CCPO is still looking for witnesses.
In a related development, the mayor said the City Government will extend cash aid on top of the burial assistance it will give to the family of Wilson Bucay, the security guard who was killed during the attack.