DOJ INDICTS BROTHER OF SLAIN SUBIC BAY TRADER

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted businessman Dennis Sytin for the murder of his brother, businessman Dominic Sytin, who was shot dead at the Subic Bay Freeport in November last year.

In a 58-page resolution dated July 3, DOJ prosecutors recommended criminal charges against Dennis Sytin, his alleged coconspirator Ryan Rementilla alias “Oliver Fuentes,” and the alleged gunman, Edgardo Luib.

In the resolution, the DOJ panel said that Sytin’s killing was “carefully planned and designed” by the respondents months ahead of the crime.

Dennis and Rementilla “had all the ill motives to perpetrate the murder as they [were] both disgruntled and angry at [Dominic Sytin] for terminating them from United Auctioneers Inc. (UAI) and as regards [Dennis], for not giving him his shares in the company profits and excluding him from their business.”

Luib, who confessed to the crime, claimed Rementilla gave him money, firearms and vehicles in order to execute the murder and told him of Dominic’s whereabouts.

Frustrated murder

The three will also be charged with frustrated murder because Sytin’s bodyguard, Efren Espartero, was wounded in the ambush. The resolution was signed

by prosecutors Juan Pedro Navera, Ethel Rea Suril and Wendel Bendoval, and prosecution attorney Gino Angelo Yanga. It was approved by state prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadullon, the chair of the task force on special cases of the DOJ-National Prosecution Service.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told reporters the DOJ would ask the Supreme Court to transfer the venue of the trial from Olongapo to Manila for the safety and security of the witnesses.

Sytin, 51, was the owner of UAI, which auctions for trucks, equipment, and used vehicles.

He and Espartero were at the entrance of Lighthouse Marina Resort in the early evening of Nov. 28 when they were shot by the gunman.