(RSF/IFEX) – On 28 August 2002, RSF protested the attempted kidnapping on 26 August of Rosalie Ungue, the wife of one of the key witnesses in the murder of journalist Edgar Damalerio, just two weeks after another key witness was killed. “The determination of the journalist’s killers to silence witnesses seems only to be matched […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 28 August 2002, RSF protested the attempted kidnapping on 26 August of Rosalie Ungue, the wife of one of the key witnesses in the murder of journalist Edgar Damalerio, just two weeks after another key witness was killed.
“The determination of the journalist’s killers to silence witnesses seems only to be matched by the negligence with which the authorities are treating this case,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Interior Minister José Lina. “Such negligence is not only unacceptable but criminal under the rule of law,” Ménard added.
The organisation again called on the interior minister to take all necessary steps to ensure the arrest of Pagadian’s former chief of police, Asuri Hawani, who is suspected of having ordered Damalerio’s murder, and the arrest of Guillermo Wapile, the police officer suspected of having carried it out. RSF had previously written to the interior minister to express its outrage at the killing of another key witness, Jury “Ladica” Lobitaña, on 10 August.
Rosalie Ungue, the wife of witness Edgar Ungue, was approached by two armed and masked men on 26 August, in front of a store in Dumalinao (south Zamboanga province). After asking if she was indeed Ungue’s wife, they grabbed her and tried to force her onto a motorcycle in the presence of several passers-by. They finally abandoned their kidnapping attempt after she fainted. She subsequently filed a complaint and took refuge in another town.
The third key witness in this case, Edgar Amoro, was also the target of a kidnapping attempt near a Pagadian school in early August. He is still being protected by a civilian volunteer at his home in Pagadian, where he has been joined by Edgar Ungue and the witnesses to Lobitaña’s murder.
While they continue to fear for their lives, Amoro and Ungue have expressed some hope that Pagadian’s new chief of police will finally move ahead with the Damalerio case and arrest the journalist’s killers.
