PNP Internal Affairs Service probing Ozamiz police raiding team

The Philippine National Police's Internal Affairs Service (IAS) is already conducting an investigation to determine if policemen involved in the Ozamiz City predawn raid violated operational procedures.

Police spokesman Chief Superintendent Dionardo Carlos said the IAS automatically conducts a motu propio investigation on operating units after similar operations.

Fifteen people, including Ozamiz City mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., his wife and brother, were killed in a predawn raid conducted by the local police on Sunday.

"There is a motu propio investigation being handled by the Internal Affairs Service. Automatic po iyan," Carlos told News To Go in an interview on Tuesday.

He said the police raiding team members will be required to answer if IAS would find irregularities.

Meanwhile, Carlos said that the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Crime Laboratory are still processing the pieces of evidence seized during the operation and those gathered from the crime scene.

In an interview on Unang Balita, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio cast doubt on the police's decision to disable CCTV cameras at the house of the mayor and confiscate its recordings.

Topacio, who is representing detained Vice Mayor Nova Princess Parojinog-Echavez, said the CCTV recordings should not be destroyed by the police because they can use these as proof that those killed in the predawn raid fired at policemen.

The camp of the Parojinogs is claiming that the mayor and the others were executed by the policemen. They are also claiming that the blast heard during the operation came from a grenade lobbed by policemen at a group of people inside one of the houses raided.

Carlos, meanwhile, urged the public to avoid making presumptions about the police raiding teams and let them finish gathering evidence.

He said the camp of the Parojinogs should be able to present their witnesses and evidence once policemen have filed the appropriate charges in court.

"Let us allow the investigators to complete their investigation. Tingnan natin ang account ng operating team... Eventually they (Parojinogs) will have their own witness[-es] as they claim now and present them before the court," he said.

Carlos said results of the PNP's investigations, including those being conducted by police forensic probers related to the predawn raid, will be made public soon. —ALG/KVD, GMA News