Posted on 08/02/2003 7:23:41 PM PDT by csvset
FBI asked to join
probe of mutiny
Posted: 1:05 AM (Manila Time) | Aug. 03, 2003
By Leila B. Salaverria
Inquirer News Service
Hunt for masterminds
THE NATIONAL Bureau of Investigation is hot on the paper trail of the July 27 mutiny.
It has sought the help of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down the masterminds of the mutiny, and is focusing on these questions: Where did the rebel soldiers' 31 million pesos worth of state-of-the-art equipment come from? Who bought and shipped it here?
"We want to put a human face [on the matter]," NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said Saturday in an interview, adding that the items found in the Oakwood Premier serviced apartments in Makati were not in the inventory of the Philippine military and police or of the NBI.
"No expense was spared in [the mutiny]," Wycoco pointed out. "The junior officers couldn't have afforded the equipment."
He said the rebel soldiers toted 50 high-caliber firearms, costing millions of pesos, that could hit a target from a mile away; night vision goggles costing 3,000 dollars each; satellite phones and radios capable of reaching even remote areas; "field packs" similar to those used by special operations forces abroad; cellular phones; and high-end medical kits.
These items are too modern and high-tech to have been acquired in the Philippines and were probably bought in advanced countries, Wycoco said. Thus, he said, someone ordered the equipment and arranged for its transfer here.
NBI Interpol chief Ricardo Diaz said the bureau had initiated talks with its US counterpart.
He said that the FBI had expressed willingness to provide assistance in the investigation, and that he had begun drafting the formal request to be sent to the US agency this week.
Diaz said he was waiting to get "some necessary details" from the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to complete the list he would send.
Wycoco said the obvious expense of the mutiny showed that it had a "political component" and was not just triggered by the rebel soldiers' grievances.
He said that if the soldiers only wanted to air their grievances, they could have done so inside the military hierarchy or mounted a rally.
"But why take over Oakwood?" he said. "Somebody orchestrated the events."
Wycoco also said Ramon Cardenas, a Presidential Management Staff chief during the Estrada administration who was arrested last week on suspicion of involvement in the mutiny, could not have funded the attempted coup by himself because his listed assets were worth only 16 million pesos.
Asked who he thought were the other masterminds of the mutiny, Wycoco said: "There seems to be something unraveling."
Citing what he called a pattern, he said that aside from Cardenas' alleged participation in the mutiny, a search of the Mandaluyong townhouse supposedly owned by Laarni Enriquez, a mistress of deposed president Joseph Estrada, yielded equipment used in the coup attempt.
Also, he said, receipts found in Oakwood had been traced to an office reportedly being used by Estrada's son Jinggoy. The receipts were for appliances from SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City on July 8, 19 days before the mutiny.
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