Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to act with dispatch and identify those involved in the killing yesterday of Quezon City Assistant Prosecutor Noel Mingoa.
Mingoa, 46, was gunned down in front of a restaurant on Commonwealth Ave. in Quezon City.
Reports quoted a witness as saying that Mingoa was shot at close range by a man who alighted from a black car.
Aguirre said Mingoa was one of his associates in his former law firm.
“Mingoa was a very good man and a very competent litigator. I already asked the NBI to conduct an investigation and apprehend the perpetrator/s of this heinous crime,” he said.
Reports from the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said Mingoa was seen walking toward his red Toyota Montero when the suspects, on board a dark-colored sports utility vehicle (SUV), stopped meters away from him.
Police said a passenger alighted from the car, approached the victim and shot him several times in the body.
QCPD director Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar said based on initial investigation, Mingoa came from a meeting with three men in a bar some 40 meters away from where his car was parked.
Eleazar said Mingoa, prior to the shooting, attended an inquest proceeding around 12 midnight at the Quezon City hall before heading to the bar.
According to Mingoa’s wife, Eleazar said the victim met with the men to take back his P3 million cash from a “black market” investment.
Officials learned that Mingoa failed to earn from the dollars-worth scam.
Eleazar also said they found in the victim’s phone some conversations confirming his transactions, one of them indicating that the men gave him fake dollar bills as payment.
The wife also told them that they even planned to charge the men with estafa.
Eleazar said they consider the men as persons of interest. He refused to disclose their names.
He said the men also left the bar before Mingoa was shot dead.
Police found in the crime scene a total of 14 spent shells from .45-caliber pistol.
Mingoa sustained multiple gunshot wounds in different parts of his body, police said.
“Three million is a huge amount, kaya titignan talaga natin kung iyon ang motibo,” Eleazar told reporters.
On the same day, the QCPD released an artist sketch of the gunman based on the description given by the witness.
Eleazar added that they will retrieve closed-circuit camera footages from establishments in the area that may have caught the suspects’ vehicle. (REY G. PANALIGAN & VANNE ELAINE P. TERRAZOLA)
