(Eagle News)–The head of the police team that conducted the 2013 raid in Mexico, Pampanga denied they had arrested one Johnson Lee, as claimed by former Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief Benjamin Magalong.
Rodney Baloyo, then a colonel, made the denial in Tuesday’s hearing on the Good Conduct Time Allowance law.
Earlier, Magalong, who led a CIDG probe into the raid conducted by Baloyo’s team in Woodridge Subdivision said barangay authorities had managed to arrest Lee, who had run as police held the raid.
Magalong said barangay authorities told the CIDG they turned Lee over to Baloyo’s team, who at that time was still in the house being raided.
Magalong said when Baloyo’s team made a presentation to the media though, they presented a different Chinese national.
Charges
Baloyo and his team were charged criminally and administratively following the raid.
Magalong said Raul Petrasanta, who was the regional director then, eventually signed a dismissal order against Baloyo and his men, but Amadeo Corpus, one of Petrasanta’s successors, modified the order to impose the sanction of demotion instead in November 2017.
Corpus told senators this was based on the recommendation of his legal officer at that time, who had noted that one of two “aggravating circumstances,” the “fraudulent means employed” by the respondents, had already been “absorbed” in the grave misconduct of the respondents, based on a previous decision to partially grant the motion for reconsideration of Baloyo’s team.
