COTABATO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 211, 2011) – A kidnapped Filipino gold and antique trader was found dead on Friday in a creek in Cotabato City in the southern Philippines, military officials said.
Officials said the body of Dominador Berdin, 52, was discovered by children playing near the Kinagatan creek in the village of Kalanganan. “The body belongs to Dominador Mendoza Berdin, who was kidnapped in Maguindanao province,” Army Colonel Noel dela Cruz, a spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division, told the Mindanao Examiner.
Berdin, who came from Mandaluyong City near Manila, was seized on Thursday at a resort in the town of Datu Odin Sinsuat where he and a local partner met with several men who were selling gold.
Berdin was forcibly taken by the same group, but left his Muslim partner unharmed and told the police about the abduction.
Policemen who pursued the abductors arrested two of the men – Norodin Andil and Ryan Usman – but failed to catch up with the group who took Berdin to a waiting motorboat and escaped towards the Liguasan marsh in Maguindanao.
It was unknown whether the men were members of any rebel group, but police is investigating the duo.
Berdin and his partner were lured to the town by the men who claimed to have hordes of gold and antique items.
It was not immediately known why the victim was killed or the motive of the murder, but army spokesman said Berdin was shot in his right thigh and stomach.
“The victim sustained two gunshot wounds in his thigh and stomach,” Dela Cruz said, adding the body was retrieved by the police forensic team and handed over to a local funeral house. (Mindanao Examiner)