Fugitive Honasan captured
INQ7.net, Agence France-Presse
Last updated 06:41am (Mla time) 11/15/2006
(3RD UPDATE) Former senator Gregorio “Gringo†Honasan, who has been in hiding after he was accused for allegedly planning a failed coup plot on Feb. 24 against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has been captured in a posh subdivision in Quezon City early Wednesday, police said.
Senior Superintendent Asher Dolina, chief of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, confirmed that Honasan was arrested at the Green Meadows subdivision at about 2:45 a.m.
Dolina said he could not give further details of the capture of the elusive fugitive pending the return of the warrant to the Makati Regional Trial Court which issued the order for Honasan’s arrest.
Honasan sustained a deep cut in his right foot and a sprain in his left foot after he tried to elude arrest by jumping off from the second floor of the townhouse reportedly owned by a certain Ingrid Ramos in Green Meadows, a dzBB radio report said.
Initially detained at the CIDG headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City, he was later discreetly transferred to the PNP General Hospital where he was treated.
He was accompanied by his wife Jane.
A GMA-7 footage showed the white-haired Honasan being treated inside the hospital’s emergency room. The cut on his right foot required 20 stitches.
The INQ7 learned that Honasan will not be brought to the Makati RTC as earlier planned as he has to be confined at the hospital.
The arrest warrant will instead be sent to the court which is to decide where Honasan will be detained.
A five million-peso reward awaits the informant who tipped the police on Honasan’s whereabouts.
Arrested with Honasan was his driver, Jaime Baladad, who was said to be experiencing high blood pressure following their arrest.
Police are said to be considering on filing obstruction of justice charges against him.
Opposition leader and former senator Vicente Sotto III rushed to Crame after learning of Honasan’s capture.
"I have just spoken with Gringo and he told me he was taken in by the CIDG," Sotto said, adding that he would visit him later Wednesday.
He said that prior to the arrest, Honasan was already preparing to face the charges leveled against him.
Danilo Gutierrez, Honasan’s counsel, denied reports that the former senator was captured inside the townhouse. He insisted Honasan was arrested inside a car parked on Green Meadows Avenue.
A colorful personality, Honasan once described himself as the Philippines' "resident adviser on failed coup attempts".
Shortly after he went into hiding earlier this year, he went on public television to declare he would never surrender and called on Arroyo to step down.
Honasan is also linked to a 2003 mutiny by some 300 junior officers and men who took over an upscale apartment hotel in Makati City to demand the resignation of Arroyo.
The rebellion was crushed in less than a day, the ringleaders arrested and detained at barracks, though Honasan remained free.
In the 1970s, the charismatic Honasan was aide-de-camp to the then defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, the enforcer of then president Ferdinand Marcos's brutal martial law.
But in 1986 Honasan led a cabal of colonels, backed by Enrile, to foment popular unrest against the dictator. Marcos discovered the plot and Honasan and Enrile holed out at the military headquarters and called on civilians, the church and the media for protection.
Millions of Filipinos trooped onto the streets to serve as human shields to keep Marcos' forces from crushing Honasan's men. That sparked the "people power" revolt that installed opposition leader Corazon Aquino as president.
Honasan however would also later turn on Aquino, leading several bloody coup attempts. He was captured in 1987 and held in a prison ship only to make a spectacular escape.
In 1989, Honasan and his allies launched their deadliest coup attempt yet, occupying key points in the capital and even major airbases, and using captured aircraft to bomb the presidential palace.
Aquino had to call on the American military for help. Honasan's forces did not retreat until US fighter jets buzzed the city.
Honasan however was given amnesty when Aquino stepped down and replaced by former police general Fidel Ramos, who was also a key player in the 1986 revolt against Marcos. Thea Alberto, INQ7.net; with reports from Agence France-Presse
Gringo Honasan Captured
Originally Posted by tolstoi
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