By Aquiles Z. Zonio
The Gen. Santos City police nabbed on Sunday another suspect in the gruesome Nov. 23,2009 Maguindanao massacre.
Senior Insp. Lorenzo Henares, chief of police of Makar Police station, identified the suspect as a certain Norhato M. Kamino, alias Alfiche Banding.
Henares said Kamino was arrested after more than a month of surveillance.
“Based on the information we gathered, he formerly worked in Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao. Then he transferred residence to Margus in Glan town, Sarangani province,” Henares said.
Kamino reportedly worked in a banana plantation in sitio Paopao, T’boli town, South Cotabato since June last year.
The police official said local residents tipped them off on the presence of a massacre suspect in the area.
“His facial features matched that of one of the massacre suspects,” Henares said, adding that the suspect was nabbed by virtue of a standing warrant of arrest issued by a court.
During the raid, Kamino tried to escape but the police team caught up with him.
The suspect is under the custody of the Makar Police station awaiting the schedule for his transfer to Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig, Metro Manila.
In an interview with reporters, Kamino denied any involvement in the massacre.
“There’s God who knows I’m innocent. I have never set foot on the massacre site,” the suspect said in the Visayan dialect.
Today (Oct. 23), is the 35th-month anniversary of the Ampatuan carnage where 58 people, 32 of them journalists, perished in what is considered the single deadliest incident of the murder of journalists in history.
