An escapee of the North Cotabato District Jail was arrested Monday in a remote village here after police and military authorities were alerted of his presence, raising the number of recaptured detainees to 51.
Senior Inspector Ricardo Carbonell, chief of Pigcawayan municipal police office, identified the re-arrested detainee as Kentol Guiamad Esmael, 31,of Barangay Kadingilan, Pigcawayan, North Cotabato.
Esmael was one of the six inmates who hails from Pigcawayan and among the 158 detainees who fled the provincial jail facility in Kidapawan City after gunmen attacked the compound on January 5.
Esmael was detained on charges of illegal possession of firearms.
Police said Esmael was spotted by residents in the village where almost everyone knows that he was arrested, charged and detained at the provincial facility.
Residents were also informed by the police through images and photos of the escapees posted at public places in the town.
Carbonell said a civilian tipped off the police about Esmael’s presence in his relatives’ homes so a team of policemen and soldiers went to his location at 5 a.m. He did not resist arrest.
Esmael told reporters that he has no plans of fleeing at the height of the attack but the gunmen, led by Nasser Esmael, alias “Commander Derbi,” threatened they will shot those who will not escape.
He said the attackers’ leader was not a relative but a namesake.
Esmael also said that the gunmen threatened to set the jail facility on fire if they don’t leave the compound.
The provincial government of North Cotabato has offered P10,000 for information leading to the arrest of the other escapees. Police did not reveal the name of the informant for security reason.
Manhunt against the remaining escapees, 96 of them, continues, according to Senior Supt. Emmanuel Peralta, North Cotabato police office.
For the 158 escapees, 10 were killed during hot pursuit operations, one was injured and 51 are back in jail.
The North Cotabato Special Action Committee (SAC), chaired by North Cotabato Gov. Shirlyn Macasarte-Villanueva, has offered P1 million for “Commander Derbi” and another P1 million for the arrest of Melvin Casangyao, a moneyed drug lord who was the subject of “rescue” operation by the gunmen. (PNA)
