EXCLUSIVEand Main suspect in Koronadal heist pleads not guilty
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By:
Roel Osano and Edwin Fernandez
Khadaffy Guiamelon mug shots (pnp.gov.ph)
KORONADAL CITY
(Sept. 26) – Khadaffy Guiamelon, one of the six gunmen who robbed Agencia
Brillantes pawnshop here, has pleaded not guilty during arraignment at the
Regional Trial Court on Friday morning.
Guiamelon,
alias Commander Pilandok, was arrested at 1and00 a.m. Sept. 21 on charges of
kidnapping and robbery in Koronadal City on Sept. 18.
Guiamelon
pleaded not guilty on charges of robbery with homicide during the arraignment before
the sala of RTC-Branch 24 presiding Judge Lorenzo Balo.
Judge Balo set
the pre-trial on October 22.
Under tight
security, Guiamelon, 46, was brought to the RTC here at 9 a.m. He kept silent and refused to answer media
questions.He was positively identified by two witnesses as the one who led the heist.The Koronadal
City PNP said Guiamelon led five other armed men on Sept. 18 who barged Agencia
Brillantes pawnshop at 12:36 p.m., shot security guard Joan Lazaga and took
about P600,000 worth of jewelry.
Another security
guard was also killed as they fled. Four others were wounded in the process.
A CCTV
footages from the pawnshop clearly showed Guiamelon’s face. His five other accomplishes remained at
large.
Guimelon ranks
third in the list of the Anti-Kidnapping Group (AKG) of the Philippine National
Police of most wanted kidnappers in Southern Philippines.
He was nabbed at
his safe house along Pansacala Street, Cotabato City.
Guimelon and
his followers are remnants of Central Mindanao’s once feared kidnapping
syndicate led by Abogado Gado, also known as Commander Mubarak, and his
notorious henchmen, Kagui Musa Ali and Mayangkang Saguile, who then lead
smaller kidnap gangs.
Mubarak, Ali
and Saguile, all ethnic Maguindanaons, were tagged in the abduction, in a spate
of kidnappings during the early 1990s, of more than 70 people, mostly Chinese
traders engaged in big businesses in Central Mindanao.
Senior Supt.
Rolen Balquin, Cotabato City police chief, said local policemen and police
agents from Koronadal City, operatives of the AKG and the Philippine
Anti-Organized Crime Commission, and combatants of the Army’s 5th Special
Forces Battalion together arrested Guimelon based on two separate warrants for
his arrest.
Balquin said
Guiamelon’s arrest was a result of extensive cooperation among civilian
tipsters, the police and the intelligence units here of the Army’s elite
Special Forces.