Cops tag NPA hit squad in North Cotabato village councilman's death

KIDAPAWAN CITY -- Citing reports from the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO), police here tagged the liquidation squad of the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) Front 53 as behind the killing this Sunday of a village official. Supt. Leo Ajero, city police director, said based on the SOCO reports, the gun used to execute barangay kagawad Albert Domingo of Barangay Marbel was the same pistol in killing two years ago of a certain ‘Bantito’, a businessman from Arakan, North Cotabato. Both were ‘assets’ of the military.Domingo was a former member of the Army’s 39thInfantry Battalion. Ajero said that of the three angles they have identified in Domingo’s killing, the NPA’s involvement is ‘closest to reality.’ Other motives include carnapping, as the suspects snatched the motorcycle being driven by the village official after the execution. Authorities also did not discount possibility that ‘love triangle’ was behind Domingo’s murder.