Police release on Feb. 23, 2018 a video grab of a suspected ‘’spotter” who aided the masked man who assassinated lawyer and Ronda Vice Mayor Jonnah John Ungab outside of the Cebu City Hall of Justice on Feb. 19, 2018.
PHOTO FROM/TASK FORCE UNGAB
TAKE your time but don’t stop.
This was the message of the family of slain lawyer and Ronda Vice Mayor Jonnah John Ungab to the police and the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7) as days continue to pass without identiying the culprits in the lawyér’s brazen killing.
Ungab’s nephew John Majed, the family’s designated spokesperson, said they fully understood the obstacles that hinder investigators from solving the crime.
“We know for ourselves how difficult this case is because of its sensational nature. We’re not putting pressure on them (police and NBI). We’re giving them the time,” he told Cebu Daily News over the phone.
John Majed appealed to witnesses to come forward and help investigators in unmasking the identities of the perpetrators.
So far, however, the Ungab family has yet to decide if they would dangle a reward to tipsters.
The municipal council of Ronda town was earlier requested by the victim’s brother Jonald to raise P500,000 as reward money to anyone who can lead to the arrest of the culprits. But the municipal council has yet to discuss the matter.
“We can never tell how many people were involved in killing my uncle. Of course, we wanted investigators to solve this as early as possible, but owing to the delicate nature, we’re giving them time,” John Majed said.
“We wait for updates from the police especially that we entrusted this case to them. On their part, the NBI promised to help us solve the case slowly but surely,” he added.
Meanwhile, Senior Insp. Jonathan Taneo, Task Force Ungab spokesperson, was hoping that the victim’s family would turn over his cellular phone to them.
“The cellphone can help us trace the activities of the victim. We could establish a timeline and determine who the people he had a constant contact with in the past months,” he said in an interview.
Taneo said they did not compel the family of Ungab to hand the cellular phone to the police since they were still grieving last week.
“I hope, they can give that cellular phone to us now,” he said.
The NBI-7, on the other hand, has browsed through the contents of Ungab’s cellular phone but have yet to take custody of it.
Both the police and the NBI-7 wanted to subject Ungab’s cellular phone to forensic examination by their respective anti-cybercrime units to trace the messages and calls of the victim.
Last February 3, of two weeks before he was killed, Ungab sought assistance from the Regional Anti-Cybercime Office supposedly to trace the person who wanted to extort money from him, Taneo revealed.
But Ungab didn’t push through with filing a complaint after the lawyer was asked to turn over his cellular phone to the police, Taneo said.
“We didn’t have the details about that extortion/threat because he decided not no proceed with the case,” said Taneo.
Ungab was shot dead by an unidentified assailant while driving his car outside the Cebu City Hall of Justice last February 19. His wife Pearl, who was on the front passenger’s seat, was unharmed.
Investigators have found two alleged “spotters” from footages of closed-circuit television cameras at the Hall of Justice and a cellphone video taken by Pearl. However, the police and the NBI-7 still have no identities of the “spotters,” the gunman, and the driver of the getaway motorcycle.
A bystander who claimed to have seen the shooting of Ungab has declined to stand as witness out of fear that the killers might get back at him.
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