MANILA, May 7 -- A police major implicated in a kidnapping case was shot and killed Saturday by unidentified gunmen in front of his home less than a month after he was acquitted by a Philippine court of the charges.
Radio station DZXL reported that suspended police chief inspector Timoteo Zarcal was standing in front of his house in Santa Cruz, Manila, when unidentified gunmen approached him and started firing at point blank range.
Zarcal suffered gunshot wounds in the face and body and was rushed by neighbors to the nearby Chinese General Hospital where doctors said he died during surgery.
'Police investigators are still at the scene of the crime,' police officer Vergel Romero told United Press International. 'A manhunt has been launched to capture the killers.'
Witnesses said that Zarcal, the former chief of the Criminal Investigation Service, was unarmed and was simply talking with friends in front of his house when several unidentified men went up to him and started shooting.
'Witnesses said five to six youthful-looking men came up to Zarcal and started shooting, they were seen to flee on foot shouting that they were members of the communist hit squad,' said police intelligence chief Eliseo Canares.
'We will check out if the killers are really communists,' Canares said.
Several .45 caliber and 9mm bullet casings were found on the spot where Zarcal fell, along with his bloodied eye glasses and toupee.
Zarcal along with police major Jose Pring were accused by the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission of masterminding the kidnapping of three Filipino-Chinese children in February 1992.
The two had been suspended from the service in August that year but were acquitted of all charges by Judge Apolinario Santos of the Pasig Regional Trial Court in April 1994 for lack of evidence.
Zarcal was quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer after the acquittal that he would sue Vice-President and PACC chairman Joseph Estrada for 'falsely accusing' him of kidnapping.
